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Latest News
23rd July 2008
Conscience and logic:
‘I can do no other’
by Jenny Taylor
“A Eucharistic gathering”:
The Spanish-speaking Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba
lead worship at Lambeth on Day 4 (23 July).
Photo: ACNS Sweeney
The Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, one of just two bishops in the Church of England to boycott the Lambeth Conference entirely, insisted today that he is being true to biblical authority.
Explaining a decision that he admits has been painful for a man who sought refuge in Britain from persecution, and who has been at the heart of the two previous convocations at Canterbury – first as Coordinator in 1988 and then as a Member of the Steering Committee in 1998 - he said it was a matter of ‘conscience and logic’.
He said that ‘persistent false teaching’ and ‘persistent sexual immorality without repentance’ had both led to his decision
‘I have before me a pastoral letter from the bishops of California instructing their clergy on how to take gay weddings in their churches. These people are here. How can I have fellowship with them and still teach my people what the church has always taught?’
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali
Photo: Stephano Cagnoni
He said the Windsor Report, set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury which reported in 2004 recommended that those who were involved in the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson who divorced his wife and two children in order to marry a man with whom he had lived for 20 years should not attend Anglican gatherings until the matter had been resolved.
‘And yet I find that all fifty of the people who laid hands on him are at Lambeth. They have invited their teams to take a leading part in it. That’s fine, but don’t ask me to be co-opted on to that kind of thing.’
He added that his office prevented him from taking any other decision. ‘As a private individual I could do anything I pleased, but in my present position I could not mislead people.’
Bishop Nazir-Ali’s website carries a brief statement about his decision, citing the Windsor Report’s recommendation that Eucharistic fellowship be temporarily withdrawn from dissenters to the Windsor process. (See the section ‘On public Rites of Blessing of same sex unions’ and paragraph 157.)
Bishop Wolf of Kansas, ECUSA leaving the
Eucharist on Day 3
Photo: ACNS/Gunn
Two separate altars have been set up at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, in a bid to get round the proviso. But the bishop told Lapido Media: ‘Lambeth itself is a Eucharistic gathering, for the bishops gathered around the Lord’s table teaching the common faith. I don’t think it’s right to set up separate altars.’
The Conference itself was one of the ‘instruments of unity’ in the Anglican Communion.
Dr Nazir-Ali added he was ‘absolutely willing’ to talk to anyone about the issues at stake, and the Archbishop of Canterbury had ‘thought seriously’ about having informal discussions before the Conference. He attended and addressed many gatherings of groups allied to the ECUSA position – but that was not the same as gathering to ‘teach the faith’.
‘There are some things that must take priority over fellow feeling,’ he added.
Gloria Kwashi: ‘considerable person’
Photo: Ben Enwuchola
Bishop Michael gave a keynote address to the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in June which he described as ‘the emergence of a new global fellowship.’ Attended by 300 Anglican bishops in Jerusalem, it also welcomed leading Anglican theologians, pastors and wives of bishops in tough locations, including Phoebe Orumbi, wife of the Archbishop of Uganda Henry Orumbi, and Gloria Kwashi, wife of the Archbishop of Jos in Nigeria. She was assaulted and temporarily blinded by intruders at her home in July 2007 – yet continued to pray for her assailants.
Said Dr Nazir-Ali: ‘These are very considerable people. Such fellowship is greatly needed because there are some parts of the world where orthodox Anglicans are in the majority, but there are others where they feel very isolated.
‘The Americans too were saying at least we feel again we belong because they have been completely ostracised by the direction their church has taken.’
GAFCON is only one among several such fellowships whose future significance as representative of the Anglican Communion as a whole depends, they say, on the adherence by the Communion to its own resolutions, namely the 1987 Synod resolution on active homosexual relationships of clergy,[1] and the Lambeth 1998 resolution 1:10 on human sexuality.[2]
Said Dr Nazir-Ali: ‘As long as that continues to hold, that’s good. But as [Archbishop] Robert Runcie used to say, the word Anglican stands ready to disappear in the cause of greater truth and unity.
‘I am not in any way wedded to any denominational expression of the faith. The reason many people are Anglican is it has been the vehicle for them for apostolic truth. If it continues to be so, wonderful, praise the Lord, but you cannot compromise apostolic truth for the sake of allegiance.’
RELATED LINKS
The Bishop of Rochester is Patron of Lapido Media. His views may or may not be indicative of the views of the Trustees of Lapido Media on any particular issue. His invitation to become Patron was based on his championing of the poor and persecuted where Christians are a persecuted minority, and his clear and courageous articulation of Christian distinctives in a secularising context.
Why has the Archbishop of Canterbury been so central to the theological debate surrounding same-sex marriage? Read his lecture The Body’s Grace given as the 10th Michael Harding Memorial Address to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in1989 and reprinted with his permission many times since then. http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm
Read Dr Jenny Taylor’s response as a single woman to this lecture in her forthcoming book
A Wild Constraint: Recovering Chastity to be published 1 November 2008 by Continuum www.continuumbooks.com
Read LGCM Chief Executive Dr Richard Kirker’s view of the impact of the Archbishop’s address http://www.lgcm.org.uk/html/AngText03.html
[1] On 11 November 1987, the General Synod passed by 403 votes to 8 the following motion in response to a Private Member’s Motion moved by the Revd Tony Higton:
'This Synod affirms that the biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity in personal relationships is a response to, and expression of, God's love for each one of us, and in particular affirms:
- that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent married relationship;
- that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion;
- that homosexual genital acts also fall short of this ideal, and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion; that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality; and that holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders.'
[2] Lambeth 1:10 refers to a resolution passed in 1998 by the Lambeth Conference. The resolution said, in part, that while the bishops recognized that "many persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation" are members of the Church, they rejected homosexual practice as "incompatible with Scripture" and "cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions..." The full text is available at http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1998/1998-1-10.cfm
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