At the end of every workshop I hold with the Pastors in West Nile I include an ‘Open Forum’. Its purpose is to give them the opportunity to raise issues which concern them. In these sessions one of those most frequently raised is the question of homosexuality.
This is not a cause for surprise. Although there is little evidence of homosexual activity in West Nile it is very much in the news. Gay rights are hardly on the agenda in Uganda, and there is a good deal of homophobia. Because of this, Uganda along with other African countries is becoming a major target for the gay lobby. In response a bill has been before Parliament which includes the death penalty for 'aggravated' homosexuality with a minor, or when HIV+. The bill has prompted the EU and USA to threaten the withdrawal of aid should the bill become law. Thankfully this does not seem too likely.
Another reason why the Pastors of West Nile are so interested in asking about homosexuality is because of GAFCON (The Global Anglican Futures Conference). The Conference was held in Jerusalem in 2008 by a number of churches of the Anglican Communion (including the Church of Uganda). These churches felt betrayed by the failure of the Anglican Communion in general and the Archbishop of Canterbury in particular to discipline the Anglican Church in the USA after it had consecrated an openly gay bishop. In addition, the Church of Canada had taken a unilateral decision to authorise gay ‘marriages’. Both of these actions had been taken despite the fact that in 1998 the Lambeth Conference of bishops had resolved that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture” and could not “advise the legitimising of same-sex unions”.
Already some Anglican churches in the USA had sought refuge from their errant brothers and sisters at home by seeking episcopal oversight in various African countries, including Uganda. Like it or not, the consequences of what had begun as a division in the Anglican Church of the USA had been structurally exported into the rest of the Anglican Communion. What was already a mess had been made even more messy.
The rights or wrongs of GAFCON are not really the issue here. The real issues from my perspective as a priest of the Church of England working in the Church of Uganda are many, but here are two.
The first is the perception of an American tail wagging a world-wide Anglican dog on both sides of the argument. Whilst in major cities homosexuality is doubtless a live issue, in my 25 years of ministry in South Yorkshire it simply didn’t feature. The gay lobby may well be active, noisy and often downright illiberal in its tactics, but I do not believe the challenge of homosexuality in the worldwide church is genuinely an issue which should take centre stage. The problem when it is allowed to become a major topic of disagreement is that opinions become polarised, homophobic attitudes are stimulated and the church is prevented from responding pastorally and getting on with its primary task of proclaiming the Gospel.
The second is related, in that what should be relegated to the inside pages becomes a headline in places like West Nile. Clergy are encouraged to sign up to declarations that have practically nothing to do with their day-to-day ministry and sometimes begin to believe that outside of the GAFCON orthodoxy all other pastors (possibly even including myself) are involved in marrying gay people and supporting the principle of equal gay rights in Christian ministry.
Looking on from Uganda, the press furore this week about the appointment of a new bishop to Southwark has raised a number of questions, amongst them: How was it that one of the, presumably, Christian members of the Crown Nominations Commission saw fit to break their oath of confidentiality to leak the name of one of the candidates? Church politics can be such a dirty business! And how was it that anyone could believe that the inclusion of Jeffrey John in a short list (which presupposes the possibility of his appointment as bishop) could be anything but divisive at the present time? There really is nothing like pouring oil on a burning fire.
One thing is certain; if the Dean of St Alban’s had been appointed Bishop of Southwark, it would have been major news here and the ecclesiastical gulf between those I work with and the Church of England to which I also belong would have been widened. That would have been a tragedy.
As it is, I doubt that anyone here will even notice........
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