Archbishop of Canterbury’s First Move
posted May 28th, 2007 at 9:28 am by Betty
Perhaps you have already read that the Archbishop of Canterbury has made a first move (in what seems to me more like a game of chess than a reality) in thinking about who will be and who will not be included in the global gathering at Lambeth, scheduled for three weeks in the summer of 2008 in London. Why am I reminded of one reporter’s words some months past who suggested that there might not be a Lambeth at all. Is this now a wish on my part? Frankly, it’s hard to continue to care. But at this time it looks like Lambeth will take place without New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson and Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia. For details of this first move by the Archbishop, read from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/us/23anglican.html?_r=1&oref=sloginI have learned to study carefully the words of Bishop Katherine when these decisions comes down from on high. Note that she urges a “calm approach.” And she also added that “the situation could change over the next 14 months.”
My gut feeling is that she is right that the situation will change, and perhaps overnight. That is why I consider this a first move. (And there are signs already that the two lines are lining up.) If this is the game of chess that it feels like, there will be continual moves by the Bishops right up to the time we get to Lambeth.
This is the sort of game that makes me want to take a break. The game (and it is of course a serious game, I understand that) confirms my suspicions that church history is not taken seriously enough. Here we go again excluding and including those not found on the approved list. This all feels so tiresome and so old.
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May 29th, 2007 at 7:09 am
I’ve written about this at my Blog of the Grateful Bear, the May 23rd entry titled “The Archbishop of Cowardice.” I’m extremely disappointed that the Archbishop, a man I used to respect as a scholar and poet, has caved in to the conservatives’ demands to exclude Bishop Robinson because his “lifestyle” presents a “challenge” to the bishops who are closed-minded. By submitting to the exclusionary demands of the conservative homophobes, Archbishop Williams has become one of them.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I understand the feeling, “so tiresome and so old.” But it seems that the battles against the accepted status quo within the church never end. Galileo faced being burned at the stake for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun. Over the years, just in my lifetime, the church has resisted supporting racial justice and the ordination of women. It really shouldn’t surprise us that it resists the acceptance of gays.
Perhaps the church has more trouble with Jesus’ inclusiveness than any other aspect of his ministry. And for that reason, no matter how tiresome and old it seems to those who, one more time, have to support the acceptance of others, we must do it.