Today The Times published an article by Archbishop Henry Orombi entitled The Church Cannot Heal This Crisis Of Betrayal. I was saddened by it. By the "I love Anglicanism so much I must stay away" line. I get the purity stuff, but I also think there is perspective. You know my feelings about the relative merits of concepts such as love, grace, kindness, forgiveness, participation in the body etc over and above the current row on human sexuality, which (whilst having its place in the debates of the church) cannot compare with certain basic Gospel commands.
So I dashed off a letter to the Times.
Oops.
Here it is - well, the second one down. I agree with Dr Butler, and Barbara Self and Ron Wood also I think make excellent points for the debate in general rather than simply at Archbishop Orombi, though his article rather lays him open to this charge. Richard Haggis' first paragraph also needed saying, though I am not sure I can go with his whole letter. Others are coming from places I am not, but when we speak, this is what happens.
I was very glad I added my line about prayer: I think Henry has a hard time of it, and knowing the bad choices I regularly make in my small corner, I can only thank God that I do indeed make them in my small corner. I did not mean to be rude to an Archbishop, but to plead for some perspective, and for the greatest of Biblical truths in all our doings.
4 comments:
I actually felt a lot of sympathy for Orombi as I read his letter.
I know you did, too, but I guess I mean that it's not obvious to me that he made a bad choice, or rather that attending the conference was the only good choice, if even a possible one for him. He is only a man.
But I am an outsider.
Thanks - I appreciate your thoughts.
My response to Henry is complicated.
1. How many times is that Francis quote wrongly applied!
2. The Episcopal Church has behaved abominably. Truly.
3. I am glad of his definition of sin - something which breaks relationship with God; but so does laziness; overeating; filling in a dishonest tax return; being thoughtless about the environment; not honouring one's parents. Scripture is to be obeyed - but if we have to live by the Law, says St Paul, we have to live by all of it. Or there is another way which does not make one group of people alone the scapegoat.
4. The Episcopal Church continued to behave abominably.
5. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not appointed by the secular authorities, and Henry knows this. This, I am afraid, is the argument of a man who appears to want not simply Biblical truth, but also a little power in his life. The ABC is appointed by the Crown Appointments Commission, a body made up of Church of England members, some clerical, some lay. They provide two names to the prime-minister who forwards them (with a preference) to the Queen, the head of the CofE and a very godly lady. And actually, without naming him, Henry is specifically attacking Rowan.
This makes me cross.
If you are going to attack Rowan, do it.
But no - Henry simply has a snide go at one of the holiest men you or I will ever meet and moves on. This reduces Henry in my estimation; I pray he is a better man than this paragraph allows him to be.
6. Can two walk together? Here I go with a couple of the other letters to The Times. If you don't sit with sinners and tax collectors, they remain sinners and tax collectors. The sick need a doctor. A sinless friend of sinners. Not someone pointing teh finger. Someone who can forgive seventy times seven.
Damn that's hard work.
And that's what I mean by saying, when we get right the big things Jesus asks of us, we can start to get to the rest.
7. Cos I'm sorry, this whole deal is not one of the Bible's "big things".
8. And Love sometimes uses the aphorism that "absence makes the heart grow fonder", but sometimes it just has to get its hands dirty -
and not prepare its alternative reality, GAFCON, where (for now) everyone thinks alike. Because schism breeds schism. And love binds together.
The article really is a mixed bag, isn't it?
Yet, when you say "This... is the argument of a man who appears to want not simply Biblical truth, but also a little power in his life," I wonder if you mean he wants to hold the power or wants something powerful and absolute in his life. I think you mean the firmer, but I wonder if he is simply desperate for the latter, and frustrated that not everyone has the same as him... if that makes sense. Which it probably doesn't. Never mind.
But refusing to sit down with those whith whom you disagree, that's just beyond the pale. Im very gad that Jesus chose to sit down with me (as it were) when I disagreed with Him about how I should live my life. I'm also glad that, having not won the 'argument' the first few times, He kept on sitting down with me and dn't give up on me. Maybe I'm expecting too much from a sinner saved by grace, but following Jesus every step is just that high a calling.
...is best spoken of with tears and I'm all spoken-out these days.
I'm often glad i'm not a bishop and certainly glad i'm not an archbishop!
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