The murder of David Kato – Michael Kimindu of CA Kenya writes an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury

Dear Archbishop Williams,

Happy New Year, may God endow you with wisdom to lead
the people of God in the Anglican Communion and globally.

I take this opportunity to thank you for adding your voice to the call for an end to homophobia and bigotry, the result of which may have contributed to the death of our brother David Kato. The death of David and the root cause may not lie in the position held by the Church of Uganda alone.

Since 2009, missionaries of hate and homophobia especially from USA have been spreading false teachings and interpretations on some selected texts of the Bible to some Charismatic Pentecostal believers, the results of which include the Bahati Anti-Homosexual Bill. Ignorance of the holistic interpretation of Scripture on the part of these missionaries of hate and their converts is much to blame.

These missionaries take advantage of the poverty affecting most of their followers, who are vulnerable, enticing them with money. Some of those confessing healing from homosexuality are heterosexuals who are simply after money. Homosexuality, like HIV/AIDS, has attracted large interest from people who see it as a way of getting rich. Even well meaning allies are accused of being affirming for the sake of money from the USA and EU Countries.

Personally, I have been involved in LGBTI advocacy for the last 7 years. I was at the last Lambeth Conference as part of the Voices of Witness Africa and I am the Coordinator for Other Sheep East Africa. David Kato, an Anglican, was part of Other Sheep Chapter Uganda.

Your Grace, homophobia in Africa cannot be fought by one denomination let alone one religion. It is time now for the Ecumenical Movement to take a step towards the concerted effort to fight homophobia. Leaving every member denomination to have their own position is not helpful. How many people are enough to wake up the WCC to action?

Christians alone will not win, Interfaith cooperation is necessary, and even then non-religious communities have to be included in this campaign. You have heard the false claim that homosexuality is imported from Europe and America. Africans do not formally talk about human sexuality including same-sex even when they come across it. They know sexual acts of all forms take place, but bury their heads like the proverbial ostrich.

If we are to save Africa, homophobia will have to be fought from all fronts, but the army must be united. Deliberate disunity among early missionaries succeeded in dividing the people hence creating suspicions which haunt us to this day. Homosexuals are homosexuals whatever religion or culture.

It is my plea to you and those in a similar position to think of new approaches in the fight against homophobia.

Poverty eradication should not be left out as a strategy in fighting homophobia. So is holistic theological training in our theological Institutions. Time is now to embrace Jesus' teaching on the importance of LETTING THE TARES TO GROW WITH THE WHEAT.

My last point to Your Grace is for the fight against homophobia in Africa to be led by an African Human Resource to avoid the claim that the West is imposing homosexuality on Africa.

I hope you will find some of these ideas useful.

Your obedient servant,

Rev. Michael Nzuki Kimindu, Anglican Priest
Changing Attitude Kenya contact
Coordinator for Other Sheep, East Africa
MCC Licensed, but Anglican flesh and blood

To enable Michael to develop his work with Changing Attitude and Other Sheep in Kenya, please send a donation or become a supporter. The time for action is now and the need is urgent.

Primates’ statement on David Kato's murder brings them closer to the moment of truth

The Primates issued a statement following their meeting in Dublin, supporting the Archbishop of Canterbury’s response. They described the murder as horrific and joined him in saying that no one should have to live in fear because of the bigotry of others.

They quoted from three Anglican documents in support of their judgment:

“We reiterate that ‘the victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us’” (Primates Meeting 2005).

“We reaffirm that ‘any demonising of homosexual persons, or their ill treatment, is totally against Christian charity and basic principles of pastoral care’” (The Windsor Report).

“We call on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and condemn irrational fear of gay people.” (1998 Lambeth Conference).

I’ve been highlighting the positive elements of Lambeth 1.10, The Windsor Report and other Anglican statements for many years. It seems to me that this is a huge development, the Primates themselves highlighting sentences that affirm the place of LGBT people in the Church and condemn anything that demonises us or provokes ill-treatment.

The next step is a difficult one to make for conservative Christians for whom the Bible is their prime source of authority, let alone for Global South Primates and bishops who believe the Bible judges and condemns lesbian and gay people and legitimizes our persecution. They wouldn’t have agreed the statement, of course, and I wonder what will happen if and when they return to the table.

But let’s stay with the conservatives, many of whom I meet often and count as friends. I think the Primates have drawn closer to the point where the conflict between so-called traditional Christian teaching and the Gospel demands of love and justice, including God’s love for ‘homosexual persons’ who are ‘full members of the Body of Christ’ becomes impossible to resolve.

The Anglican Communion will NEVER overcome its homophobia, NEVER be able to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are free from persecution and demonisation, NEVER be committed to our welcome and full inclusion, until it changes its mind and rejects all aspects of teaching and Biblical interpretation which count us as less than others.

Changing Attitude England will never cease reminding the Church, Synods, bishops, Primates, Instruments of Unity, that there is no alternative but to commit to the full inclusion of LGBT people, admitting us to every order of ministry and blessing our relationships and lives which are marked by love every bit as profound, deep, complex and holy as heterosexual marriage.

David Kato’s murder marks the beginning of a new campaign which will not end until justice has been achieved.

Colin Coward

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David Kato RIP

David Kato, was attacked and beaten to death with a hammer at his home in Kampala on Wednesday 26 January 2011. David was known as ‘the grandfather of the kuchus”, a brave and passionately committed activist who had been campaigning for gay rights for more than a decade. He had been leading the campaign against David Bahati’s Anti-homosexuality bill, which demands that homosexuals be executed and which has intensified the climate of hatred and prejudice against LGBT people not only in Uganda but across Africa.

Changing Attitude England has been campaigning for fifteen years for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the Anglican Communion. By implication, we are campaigning against everything, every attitude, every theological position, every use of scripture, every sermon, teaching and episcopal attitude which allows or encourages prejudice and hatred against LGBT people.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, issued a statement following the murder. He said, in part: “No one should have to live in such fear because of the bigotry of others. This is a moment to take very serious stock and to address those attitudes of mind which endanger the lives of men and women belonging to sexual minorities.”

Changing Attitude England welcomes the Archbishop’s forthright stance. Following David’s murder, the time has come to demand that the Anglican Communion abandons the parts of the teaching enshrined in Lambeth Conference resolution 1.10 of 1998 that rejects homosexual practice as being incompatible with scripture (para. 4) and cannot advise the legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions (para 5).

The Anglican Communion must move to adopt as policy the commitments made in paras 3 and 5 to assure homosexual people that they are loved by God and are full members of the body of Christ, and to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation.

The Most Revd Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, is one of 7 Primates who have absented themselves from the Primates’ meeting in Dublin this week because The Most Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is present and because of TEC’s policy which breaks the moratoria on ordaining gay bishops and allowing same sex blessings.

TEC has led the way towards the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Church and in the global Christian community, reflecting theologically on human sexuality and listening for over 30 years to LGBT people. TEC has committed itself to integrating us into every level of Church life. For doing this it is demonized. Conservatives, in the words of Canon Chris Sugden, bear false witness against The Episcopal Church and claim, wrongly, that Anglicans have been persecuted and driven from their homes, buildings and jobs in the USA and Canada.

In contrast, the Church of Uganda in a statement issued on 9 February 2010, whilst not fully endorsing the Bahati bill, argued that homosexual behaviour should be prohibited and penalized and the licensing of organisations which promote homosexuality should be prohibited. In conclusion it reiterated the Church of Uganda’s desire to provide love and care for all God’s people “caught up in any sin” (which is not what Lambeth 1.10 says).

A local Anglican priest, the Revd Thomas Musoke, at Friday's funeral for David Kato, grabbed the microphone in the middle of the ceremony and decried homosexuality, causing a fight to break out and leading villagers to refuse to bury the body. Reports say he screamed:

"The world has gone crazy. People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man. It is ungodly.”

One woman responded:

"Who are you to judge others? We have not come to fight. You are not the judge of us. As long as he's gone to God his creator, who are we to judge Kato?"

Marking a stark contrast with the attitude of the Church of Uganda, the Kampala-based Daily Monitor carried an editorial comment which concluded:

“People like David Kato and others who might be gay are Ugandans and enjoy the same rights and protections of the law as heterosexuals. We cannot send them into exile neither, lock them away, or hang them. We need to have an honest discussion about how to ensure that their rights are upheld without violating the rights of other Ugandans. Peaceful and stable societies only emerge when we understand and try to accommodate those who are different from us, or who disagree with us – not by ostracising or killing them.”

Changing Attitude England calls on every Province of the Anglican Communion to urgently review attitudes to homosexuality.

The abusive use of Lambeth 1.10 which focuses on negative, judgmental attitudes towards LGBT people must be reversed.

Affirmation of the unconditional love of God for all people, pastoral care and support which is undiscriminating, and opposition to homophobia and all prejudice against LGBT people must become the policy of the Communion.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that this is a moment to take very serious stock and to address those attitudes of mind which endanger the lives of men and women belonging to sexual minorities.

The Primates who are meeting in Dublin have an opportunity to reflect on the effect of Christian teaching which diminishes the humanity of LGBT people and puts our lives in danger. They must initiate a review of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 in response to David’s murder, the continuing violence against LGBT people in the global community and the loss of so many faithful LGBT Anglicans who are abandoning the Church they love because of its deeply ingrained prejudice.

The Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion must engage in a similar review of Anglican policy when they next meet.

The next meeting of the Lambeth Conference in 2018 will be too late. By then, more LGBT activists and individuals will have been murdered and more teenagers committed suicide, and tens of thousands of LGBT Anglicans will continue to live in secrecy and in fear for their safety and their lives.

The need for action to combat the evil of prejudice and violence against LGBT people is urgent and changes in Anglican Communion teaching and policy must be made NOW.

Colin Coward

To enable Changing Attitude England to campaign for urgent change in Anglican Communion policy towards our LGBT members please become a supporter or make a donation.

Changing Attitude Ireland statement on the Anglican Primates’ Meeting in Dublin

Our sister group, Changing Attitude Ireland, has issued a statement today, 22nd January 2011, in advance of the Primates' meeting which begins on Tuesday 25th:

As the senior bishops from Anglican Churches worldwide prepare to meet in Dublin for their Primates’ Meeting (25th-31st January) there has been a call on the Irish Government by an Irish Anglican group to request the visiting Archbishops to address the problem of Christian-backed persecution of gay persons.

The call comes from Changing Attitude Ireland and its Secretary the Church of Ireland clergyman Canon Charles Kenny requests Ireland’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Brian Cowen, who is also the Prime Minister, “to maintain the interest shown by the Department of Foreign affairs under his predecessor Micheal Martin in the persecution of gay persons in Uganda and Malawi”.

Dr Richard O’Leary of Changing Attitude Ireland called in addition on Mr Cowen “to match the concern of his former British counterpart, Prime Minister Gordon Brown when Mr Brown used the November 2009 meeting of the Commonwealth to speak out about the threat to gay persons from the Ugandan government”.

Dr O’Leary said “In the month that Ireland recognised Civil Partnership for same-sex couples, let us not forget the recent violence against and imprisonment of a gay couple in Malawi”. He continued “Archbishop Rowan Williams and the leaders of the Anglican Communion who are meeting in Dublin this week need to assume their responsibilities in tackling homophobia and the Churches collusion in it”. Canon Charles Kenny added “The Meeting of the Anglican Primates takes place over a whole week so I think they should be capable of finding some time to discuss the scandal of homophobia that exists in the Church, especially in Uganda, Malawi and Nigeria.” The Primates from all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been invited to the Meeting in Dublin by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and are hosted by the Primate of all Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper.

Last year the Ugandan parliament was presented with a draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill which would introduce the death penalty for some behaviour by gay persons. The Irish government is a major development aid donor to Uganda and Malawi and last June the Director of the Human Rights Unit in the Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs was briefed in Dublin by the retired Anglican Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo on the problem of the Christian-backed anti-gay crusade in Uganda. Bishop Senyonjo in his address at Christ Church Cathedral Dublin called for education to counteract homophobia because, "I have found that a lot of the prejudice against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people comes from ignorance." Bishop Senyonjo, a rare courageous voice in the conservative Anglican Church in Uganda, and who speaks in support of gay persons, visited Ireland on the invitation of Changing Attitude Ireland, and urged people in Britain and Ireland to oppose the Bill.

Canon Charles Kenny

Secretary, Changing Attitude Ireland
1st Floor War Memorial Building,
9-13 Waring St,
Belfast
BT1 2DX
UK +44(0)28 90669632
e-mail: changingattitudeireland@hotmail.co.uk
www.changingattitudeireland.org

What will the pattern of the Anglican Communion look like in 10 years time?

The Anglican Communion is being reconfigured at the moment. We who campaign for the full inclusion of LGBT people fear that in 10 years time we might find ourselves marginalised and excluded.

The narrative of those conservative Anglican bodies and individuals opposed to the full inclusion of LGBT people claim that it is the Episcopal Church that has ‘walked apart’. In practice, the groups that have walked apart and distanced themselves from the Anglican Communion are those which have failed to participate in the Councils of the Church – the Lambeth Conference, Primates Meeting and Anglican Consultative Council. There is a growing and, to me, bewildering array of these bodies and alliances – ACNA, Global South, GAFCON, FCA, ACI, CANA, AMiA, etc. These are also the groups which refuse to act on the parts of Lambeth 1.10 and the Windsor Report which advocate listening to and the pastoral care of LGBT people. The multiplicity of groups also shows dramatically that those who edge towards schism are unable to agree an alternative identity or strategy between themselves.

Strategies for dealing with the dynamic
People in favour of full inclusion advocate a range of strategies that might be adopted in response to this dynamic. Many ideas are posted in the comments on Thinking Anglicans. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• Form a new diocese of the Episcopal Church in England. This would need to create local churches where the pro-inclusion people could worship with the like-minded. I can’t see it happening and it isn’t what I want. Devizes already has 3 Anglican churches, one evangelical, one opposed to the ordination of women, one striving to be open and fully-inclusive. I want to be worshipping in a Church of England parish church that is properly Anglican in ethos – that’s the challenge, a challenge that my Rector is totally committed to engage with, as are the majority of the congregation.
• Create our own, alternative ‘liberal’ Anglican Communion, parallel with the conservative bodies. If the Church of England is a part of a liberal realignment, then the campaign for full inclusion will have been successful. If the Church of England is not a part of this new alignment, then it will be yet another schismatic Anglican Church and at the moment, that is most certainly not what Changing Attitude is campaigning for.
• Encourage TEC to withdraw from the Instruments of Communion and continue with its own polity in – isolation? That would be to throw another bone to the conservative forces (as +Rowan has repeatedly done, which may or may not turn out to have been a good strategy). The lesson is that the bones never satisfy them, of course. They will continue to scheme and chew away at any liberal, inclusive presence in the Church wherever they find it, CofE or Canada, Australia or South Africa, until they (in their fantasy) have destroyed everything which is against their reading of the Word of God.
• Campaign for a vote against the Anglican Covenant by the Church of England. For this to be effective, practical action must be taken now to canvass, lobby and persuade members of every diocesan synod to vote against when it is tabled for debate to ensure that a majority of dioceses vote NO before it returns to General Synod.
• With GAFCON withdrawing from the Primates Meeting and many Provinces not having attended the last Lambeth Conference, why shouldn’t those Provinces remaining fully committed to the Communion, including the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Church of England, sign the Covenant and work with the other Provinces who sign to reconfigure it to reflect Anglican polity more properly, deleting Section 4 entirely. Such a strategy is uncertain of success and is very unlikely to happen.
• Other individuals have moved out of the Church of England, either abandoning the Church entirely or their membership of a local congregation or moving into a different denomination – the Unitarian Church in the case of Adrian Worsfold, the Metropolitan Community Church for some LGBT Anglicans. Yet others continue to worship both in their parish church and with another congregation where they find a more open ethos and/or a deeper spirituality.

In 20 years time?
The outcome I fear most is that the mainstream denominations will have successfully opposed the full inclusion of LGBT people in 20 years time, and will have moved in the opposite direction, barely tolerating us, excluding us from ministry at every level and treating us as ‘intrinsically disordered’. Those LGBT people living in societies which have legislated for equality will by then, if they have any sense of self-worth, abandoned the Church.

A less extreme outcome would see a fragmentation of denominations, schisms and realignments into churches with either a conservative, reactionary ethos or a radical, inclusive ethos. This may well turn out to be the least-worst and only practicable outcome.

There is a third possibility. The global community is slowly, painfully slowly, being educated into knowing that LGBT people are present in every culture and every community. This largely secular movement will impact on faith communities everywhere, destabilizing their ability to deny the real presence of LGBT people WITHIN their own communities. Other signs give hope for a third possible outcome. The attitudes of the Primates who are announcing unilaterally the policy of their Provinces do not consult their bishops and priests and do not represent the views of their people. It’s impossible to know what their people really think because deference to those in authority inhibits their ability to think and speak freely - just ask Michael Kimindu in Kenya or Bishop Ssenyonjo in Uganda. Global South Provinces in the next 10 to 20 years may well change as the culture changes around them and this generation of leaders retires and lose influence.

One comment on Thinking Anglicans describes GAFCON as having no shame, capable of doing anything to further their ends, failing to stay true even to their own principles - demanding orthodoxy yet violating church order, lacking of integrity, plotting and planning, characterized by machinations.

Strategies for achieving change
How can those of us who are faithful to God and the Spirit and to the ethos of the Anglican Communion counter the conservative movement whilst maintaining our own ethos and without adopting their ruthless, unscrupulous tactics? I think the challenge is almost impossible, were it not for my faith that conservative, reactionary forces do not have unique access to the flow of God’s creative presence in the world and from my perspective, are actively working against the flow of the Spirit.

Changing Attitude is totally committed to full inclusion of all the baptized, including all LGBT people, in every Province of the Anglican Communion, and to the Anglican ethos of scripture, tradition and reason. We have demonstrated our commitment by being the only pro-inclusion group to have been present at the Lambeth Conferences in 1998 and 2008, every meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council since Nottingham in 2005 and Primates meetings since Dar Es Salaam in 2007.

The strategy of pro-inclusion groups has to be to oppose the Covenant if there is any possibility that it will be used to inhibit progress towards overturning Christian prejudice against LGBT people. Our strategy also has to be positive, committed to building relationships with bishops and Primates across Provincial boundaries and with the Instruments of Communion, being present and not abandoning territory to conservatives, working out what practical action we can take which will make a real difference to the outcome. I’m not an idealistic dreamer (well, not only). I am also always looking for the practical strategies that are going to affect outcomes favourably for us.

Say No to the Covenant has to be more than an internet campaign. Say yes to LGBT people has to be more than saying no to the Covenant or strategising for our own schismatic body. And however we campaign, we have to do it in a more Christian, Bible-centred, holy way than those who wish to suppress us.

Colin Coward

To enable us to continue to campaign for the full inclusion of LGBT people in every Province of the Anglican Communion, please become a supporter of Changing Attitude or donate to our work

Anglican Covenant – dangerous progress in Synod? Or GAFCON statement – dangerous threat withdraws?

Archbishop Rowan began his presidential address to Synod in Church House last week by referring to a sermon preached by John Wesley on 'The Catholic Spirit' which opened with a text from II Kings 10.15: 'He greeted him and said, "Is your heart true to mine, as my heart is to yours?" Jehonadab replied, "Yes." "If so," Jehu said, "Give me your hand."'

Rowan urged Synod to surprise those who are looking on by demonstrating their loyalty to each other: 'Is your heart true to mine?' Loyalty grows and flourishes when we spend time together exploring God who has brought us together - if our hearts are true to each other, different things become possible, Rowan said.

Being true to each other, in our hearts, is to me obvious and fundamental to our Christian life and witness. Heart truth is important to the life of General Synod, the Church of England, the Anglican Communion, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Anglicans. Is the Anglican Covenant going to lead us into more heart truth?

GAFCON/FCA statement
As Rowan was delivering his address a statement was released by a group of Anglican leaders under the GAFCON/FCA banner, a statement which had been written at least two weeks earlier. The statement is almost, but not quite, a declaration of independence from Canterbury.

Those issuing the statement declare that they will no longer maintain an illusion of normalcy and will join other Primates from the Global South in absenting themselves from the next Primates’ meeting to be held in Ireland.

They further declare that the current text of the Anglican Covenant is fatally flawed and so support for it is no longer appropriate.

They plan to expand their ministry through other Anglican Provinces taking the ‘theological clarity’ of the Jerusalem Declaration as a solid foundation on which to engage with other Anglicans - those who affirm Biblical theological foundations of what Anglicans have always believed and practiced. They invite people in England ‘to re-affirm what they have always believed in Anglicanism by adopting the Jerusalem Declaration as a statement of their own faith and join with us in partnership in working to win the world to Christ’.

The statement rejects the Anglican Covenant, the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates’ meeting, the Anglican Communion as at present constituted and swathes of Anglican history, experience and tradition. I might describe it as both audacious and abusive – audacious in its rejection of truth and abusive to issue it deliberately at the same moment as the Archbishop of Canterbury is asking in an adult way for Christian hearts to be true to one another and loyal to God.

The Anglican Covenant
In his address, the Archbishop of Canterbury said:

“it is an illusion to think that without some changes the Communion will carry on as usual, and a greater illusion to think that the Church of England can somehow derail the entire process. The unpalatable fact is that certain decisions in any province affect all. We may think they shouldn't, but they simply do. If we ignore this, we ignore what is already a real danger, the piece-by-piece dissolution of the Communion and the emergence of new structures in which relation to the Church of England and the See of Canterbury are likely not to figure significantly.”

The GAFCON/FCA leaders had already decided to derail the process and begun the dissolution of the Communion by setting out to create new structures which will exclude the Church of England and the See of Canterbury. Rowan, your words to Synod were taken to heart by those present, Synod members and those like me in the public gallery. Of course it is right to expect us to relate in ways that are mature, loyal, exploring God together, hearts true to each other. What then of the GAFCON leaders – are you going to ask them to behave in an equally mature way? That won’t be easy since they are already going to absent themselves from your presence.
The Archbishop continued to address the Covenant and the whole paragraph is worth quoting in full:

“The Covenant offers the possibility of a voluntary promise to consult. And it also recognises that even after consultation there may still be disagreement, that such disagreement may result in rupture of some aspects of communion, and that this needs to be managed in a careful and orderly way. Now the risk and reality of such rupture is already there, make no mistake. The question is whether we are able to make an intelligent decision about how we deal with it. To say yes to the Covenant is not to tie our hands. But it is to recognise that we have the option of tying our hands if we judge, after consultation, that the divisive effects of some steps are too costly. The question is how far we feel able to go in making our decisions in such a way as to keep the trust of our fellow-Anglicans in other contexts. If we decide that this is not the kind of relationship we want with other Anglicans, well and good. But it has consequences. Whatever happens, with or without the Covenant, the Communion will not simply stay the same. Historic allegiances cannot be taken for granted. They will survive and develop only if we can build up durable and adult bonds of fellowship.”

Managing it in a careful and orderly way has already been made impossible by the arrogant and aggressive actions of the GAFCON leaders, supported by a minority of members of General Synod. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the challenges of covenant and communion in an intelligent, relational, heart to heart way when people are acting so abusively. Changing Attitude is committed to adult behaviour, but the temptation to infantile responses is strong when Communion leaders act in infantile ways themselves.

The Synod motion moved by the Bishop of Bristol, Michael Hill, asked ‘That the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant be considered.’ It was passed by a large majority and will now be sent to the dioceses for discussion. The Church of England did not, last week, adopt the Anglican Covenant, as some have asserted. England is continuing to discuss the Covenant and explore our differences of opinion.
In Rowan’s words, the Covenant offers the possibility of a voluntary promise to consult ... and disagreements need to be managed in a careful and orderly way.

“It does not invent a new orthodoxy or a new system of doctrinal policing or a centralised authority, quite explicitly declaring that it does not seek to override any province's canonical autonomy. After such a number of discussions and revisions, it is dispiriting to see the Covenant still being represented as a tool of exclusion and tyranny.”

Those of us who are anxious about the effects of the Covenant on progress towards the full inclusion in the Body of Christ of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are yet to be convinced that it is not possible to use it in a tyrannical and exclusionary way. If the GAFCON Primates (with others) have already decided to leave the Anglican Communion then there is not only less anxiety about the Covenant being used in a punitive way, there is no longer any real need for a Covenant at all.

Same-sex unions
Earlier in his address, the Archbishop had talked about the Communion’s approach to the ‘still bitterly divisive issue’ of same-sex unions.

He said:

“The need for some thoughtful engagement that will help us understand how people who read the same Bible and share the same baptism can come to strongly diverse conclusions is getting more urgent, because I sense that in the last few years the debate on sexuality has not really moved much.”

“And if we are not to be purely tribal about this, we need the chance for some sort of discussion that is not dominated by the need to make an instant decision or to react to developments and pressures elsewhere.”

Leaders and supporters of Changing Attitude are among those who have engaged in patient and thoughtful theological discussion in many different contexts and with a wide variety of opinions. We are committed to continuing conversation and exploration but the patience of many LGBT Anglicans is being tested to the extreme. We are living with an understanding of our own integrity in Christ which means that we deliberately ignore the guidelines adopted by the Church – Issues in Human Sexuality, Lambeth 1.10 and the House of Bishops’ pastoral statement on Civil Partnerships. The conversation and exploration can continue within the Church but we have already moved beyond.

Rowan asked for the help of Synod in working with him to create an ambience where better understanding may happen, taking the debate forward without the pressure of feeling we have some single and all-important decision to make. He pointed to the success of the 'Continuing Indaba' project in creating many such spaces for face-to- face discussion across cultures, considering a wide range of actually and potentially divisive matters. It has, he said, been pursued with heroic energy and imagination by many people of profoundly diverse convictions in the Communion and needs prayer and support.

We LGBT people in the UK and North America have personal security and legal protections which enable us to pursue our goals in the Communion with confidence, engaging openly with the Church. In other, socially conservative parts of the Communion, homophobia and prejudice in Church and society mean that open conversation is impossible and LGBT people remain invisible.

I am increasingly concerned about their safety and security and their inability to live spiritually, with integrity, in relationship with other Christians, when Anglican leadership in Nigerian, Uganda, Kenya and elsewhere equivocates about or actively supports punitive legislation. They need an active campaign for freedom and justice now, not at a time to suit the patient theological discussions within the Communion.

Susan Russell on her blog An Inch at a Time displays a Get out of the covenant free card and has her own take on what happened last week. Now that the folks the Anglican covenant was designed to keep at the table have turned their noses up at it, she says, it seems that sacrificing the vocations and relationships of the LGBT baptized on the altar of Anglican Unity becomes redundant at best and throwing out historic Anglican comprehensivness in response to hysteric Anglican politics becomes ridiculous at least.

The Episcopal Church instead of studying the Anglican Covenant that's already failed to hold the Communion together needs instead to be studying how to create something that will bring us together. “Like maybe focusing on the values that unite us rather than the issues that divide us. Like building a church for the 21st century that worries about who will COME if we proclaim the Good News of God available to all rather than who might LEAVE if we include everybody.”

Will sending the Anglican Covenant to be discussed in the dioceses have a negative effect regarding progress for LGBT people or does the statement from the GAFCON leaders have a beneficial effect which far outweighs any potential negative from the Covenant?

Colin Coward

To enable us to maintain a relational, principled, heart-true campaign for LGBT people in the Anglican Communion, please become a supporter of Changing Attitude or donate to our work.

Bishop Gene Robinson to retire in 2013

Bishop Gene Robinson has announced his plan to retire as Bishop of New Hampshire in January 2013 when he will be 65 to give the diocese enough time to elect a new bishop. He will be retiring when he is 7 years below the mandatory retirement age for Episcopal bishops of 72. He made the announcement at the end of his diocesan annual convention and gave, as reasons for his early departure, the toll taken on him and on the diocese having been at the centre of international controversy.

He said: "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, you. While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate."

I first met Bishop Gene at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church held in Minneapolis in 2003. The pressure on him was already intense and the Convention was marked by false rumours about him, designed to influence approval of his election. He retreated to a protected space leaving others to navigate the media and the conservative storm opposing his election.

In 2005 he came to England for the first time as bishop to address Changing Attitude’s 10th Anniversary Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields. He received a prolonged standing ovation and, as he said in his announcement yesterday, made "the case for God and for God's church – either to those who have never known God's unimaginable love, or to those who have been ill-treated, in the name of a judgmental God, and who have left the church."

Riazat Butt of the Guardian phoned me for a comment at 10 this morning, catching me as I was about to leave for the 10.30 Communion at St John’s Devizes. When I first read the news, I felt sad that he will be retiring. He has made visible for tens of thousands of LGBT Anglicans the reality that we are present in every Province of the Communion, in every congregation, many of us ordained, some bishops and primates. He won’t retire into invisibility and by 2013 further lesbian or gay bishops bishops may have been elected to join Mary Glasspool.

Bishop Gene’s election in 2003 did indeed transform the landscape, and he has had to lie with the responsibility for, and consequences of, that transformation. At last we had somebody as a bishop who was fully visible and embodied the quality of life so many of us long for, a committed, faithful and loving relationship as a Christian.

He has borne the cost as an iconic figure on behalf of LGBT Anglicans. But his visible presence is the tip of an iceberg. There are many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of LGBT Anglicans who experience stress, anxiety, pressure, depression and at the extreme, suicidal feelings. I know that this is true from the Changing Attitude England network and from friends and colleagues in the Church of England.

Increasingly, I know it to be true in Africa and across the Anglican Communion. A young gay Kenyan Anglican told me yesterday that he “is living in great stigmatization due to my sexual orientation. I don’t want anyone to know. Please help me and keep my secrets close. Thank you for that understanding. I have disclosed to you so much more than I have ever done to anyone else.”

It is people like this lonely, desperate, isolated gay Kenyan, who longs for the kind of loving relationship enjoyed by Gene and Mark, that Gene has been an icon for. He has, thanks goodness, had Mark beside him, a diocese which took him to his heart, and a personal resourcefulness and spirituality. Most Africans have none of these resources beyond a deep commitment to their faith and to Jesus the Christ.

One conservative response to Bishop Gene’s announcement has been to accuse him of playing the victim card. After 7 years of abuse and vilification by primates, bishops and conservative pressure groups in the Anglican Communion, I might have hoped that some Christian love and wisdom might have begun to surface by now, but no, the evil and lies and misrepresentation of truth continues. Riazat reports that s spokesman for the Global Anglican Future Conference, Gafcon, said the "agonising dispute" over homosexuality was not about the New Hampshire bishop "personally". Now I wonder who might have made such a disingenuous statement?

Colin Coward

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Lead us into all truth with words that take shape in our hearts

In 1975 when Canon Nigel Harley, then Rector of St Michael’s Basingstoke where I worshipped, asked me if I was going to be ordained, I had no idea whether I had a vocation or not. I thought about the question overnight, took a risk, and the next day asked Nigel to put my name forward. At each stage of the subsequent selection process I felt a greater conviction that what I was doing was absolutely the right thing.

I didn’t believe in the creeds as factual statements of truth, nor did I believe in the Bible with any greater degree of certainty, the Book of Common Prayer had always been a stumbling block liturgically and theologically and the 39 Articles were archaic. Nor did I have a more coherent or defined understanding of the Eucharist and a conviction about it’s efficacy. The level of my conviction about creeds, scripture and communion remained roughly as they had been formed in my teens and twenties, from reading Honest to God and allied books by Eric James and others, engaging with South Bank Religion, and learning from a holy incumbent and an innovative curate at my childhood church.

My relationship with the creeds, the BCP and the 39 Articles hasn’t grown any closer with the passage of time – quite the reverse. It has always been somewhat indifferent. Their influence on my Christian formation has been primarily negative. However, my relationship with scripture is renewed daily and my eyes continue to be opened and my heart and soul nourished and nurtured by the Bible. My relationship with the Eucharist remains ambivalent. I know it’s good for me to be there but it’s rarely an unalloyed spiritual pleasure – something to do with the words and theology of hymns, the tunes, clergy voices, sermon content, the disembodied, cerebral routine.

I have been formed by daily reading of the Bible, prayer and meditation and a largely intuitive, innate sense of what I’m about as a Christian, living the life without ever quite knowing where I was on the path. I was convinced of certain truths about what it means to be a Christian gleaned from the Bible and the pattern of Jesus, moving more deeply into a contemplative pattern of prayer, rooted in the body, in the present moment, infinite and intimate.

I live by intuition, by an innate sense of who God is calling me to be and become as a follower of the Way. My sexuality is formed in the same way, by intuition and an innate awareness, conviction, of who I am in Christ. Nothing the church teaches is ever going to get in the way of my conviction about the nature of God and the nature of my own sexuality. The church is so, so wrong about my gay identity. From my perspective it is also often wrong about the nature of God, creation and the spiritual life.

Dogmas, creedal formulations, approved liturgies, ‘orthodox’ biblical interpretation, none of these has really inspired my search for the God of love, truth, justice and a life lived towards God. I have been inspired in my life of prayer and by the holy, unorthodox, saintly people who have accompanied me on my journey.

And now I’m reaching a double crisis. The Anglican Communion’s inability to deal with my sexuality is intolerable. Christian (and Moslem) teaching and preaching about homosexuality affects millions of people across the globe, consigning them to lives of fear, hatred, self-doubt, depression, lies and lovelessness. Homophobia describes a global mental and emotional attitude of prejudice and fear of difference. I hate it because it is hate-full, and time is running out for the church because millions of LGBT people need to be freed, now, from the yoke of ignorance and oppression. I’m in crisis because my heart screams with pain for my brothers and sisters whose lives are made intolerable by religion.

The second crisis concerns the way in which the church constructs its identity around allegiance to dogmas and formularies, concepts of sin, guilt and judgement, concepts of God and God’s relationship with the world and creation. We are still so incredibly obsessed by law rather than grace and by rules of belonging. We are tribal, literal in our beliefs, failing to respond to the potentially liberating insights of scientific research and discovery, spiritual renewal and global imagination.

I’m not going to explain this very well, but the God who encounters me and who I encounter in Jesus of Nazareth continues to be trapped by a failure of imagination and courage in the church – and I know it will always be so – that’s the nature of institutions and human systems. But we live at a time when people’s perspectives and imaginations are being transformed by new discoveries. They know there is more to life, to being fully alive and spiritual, than either secular agencies or the churches offer.

The church has become a battleground not just around the issue of human sexuality but for the survival of my integrity and my innate spirituality and faith. I don’t believe for one moment that God is concerned about our conformity to rules and dogmas, creeds and doctrinal formulations that define individual denominations and congregations. What I yearn towards is my immersion in the infinite, divine energy of love, goodness, truth, creativity and justice. Against this there is no law.

The trustees of Changing Attitude meet this weekend for a 3 day residential near York. Reflecting on our faith and spirituality, on the authenticity of our Christian lives and on our dynamic encounter with God which fuels our campaign for justice for LGBT people will occupy much of our time together. Next week I may be able to develop this theme further, with more insight into my own soul and greater clarity about how the Spirit is speaking to the churches.

Colin Coward

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Time for change – in depth

The tensions in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion surrounding the space it allows lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to occupy is reaching breaking point, I suspect. It is certainly driving many of us LGBT Anglicans who live within this insane dualism to the edge. In civil society we can contract civil partnerships (marriage in all but name) and create social lives which are largely free from anxiety about being gay, adult and equal. In the church we are a problem, a source of tension, guilt and embarrassment, a threat to unity and for some, a sinful body to be healed or an evil to be eradicated.

The practice of the Church of England encourages dishonesty, secrecy, collusion, fear, bad pastoral practice and bad theology. LGBT people either tolerate this unhealthy state of affairs, rail against it, or leave the church.

I don’t have the patience to wait while bishops revisit ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’ – it needs to be binned. I don’t have the patience to wait for the church to opt to treat the key biblical texts about same-sex activity in the same way it has treated texts about divorce, remarriage, slavery, the wearing of hats, the length of hair and the role of women in leadership, let alone the patience for the church to come to a common theological mind about homosexuality.

I want to be part of a church which no longer has an issue with my innate identity as a gay man, nor my visibility in church, nor my relationship with my life partner. I want to be part of a church which has overcome its uncertainty about the place of women and LGBT people in ministry, lay and ordained.

Tensions are reaching breaking point in the Communion, having been stretched in one direction by the Episcopal Church’s election as bishops of a partnered gay man and a partnered lesbian and in the other direction by conservative leaders and networks organising schismatic, transgressive movements.

Two weeks ago I was sent a scan of the Ugandan Rolling Stone front page naming Uganda’s 100 “top” homosexuals, including a picture of Bishop Christopher Senyonjo and a yellow banner saying “hang them”. The report has now been picked up by western media and websites. The Bishop of New York has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury and I’ve been asked whether the Archbishop is going to condemn the naming of and demand to hang Bishop Christopher (who of course is not gay) and the 99 other named homosexuals. Lambeth Palace usually tells me that private representations are being made and that these are felt to be more appropriate and effective than a public statement.

Changing Attitude may have acquiesced in this apparently reasonable justification of behind-the-scenes diplomacy for too long. The risk to the lives, security and emotional and physical well-being of LGBT people in Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, the UK, USA and elsewhere is too serious now for subtle diplomacy to be an appropriate response.

Homophobic individuals, newspapers, governments and churches need to know that the Anglican Communion condemns unequivocally all violence and prejudice against LGBT people (which is the Archbishop’s stated position). The fear of upsetting certain Anglican Primates, bishops and pressure groups inhibits a proper reaction.

In England, bodies have been busy planning their departure for the ordinariate or forming new pressure groups – the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda or the Society of St Augustine for the Anglican Mainstreamers – or not so mainstream following this development.

Archbishops and Popes and bishops don’t like schisms. They are symbols of unity and managing and containing threats of schism are a high priority compared with naming and condemning threats to the lives and well-being of vulnerable minority groups such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Condemning sexism and homophobia should be a priority, alongside the condemnation of racism, fascism, rapacious capitalism and fundamentalism. The position of the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury should be to unequivocally support the dignity and full inclusion of LGBT people in church and society.

In the Communion, every action taken against LGBT people should be condemned and challenged. The Church of Uganda has allowed Bishop Christopher Senyonjo to be vilified, impoverished and threatened with death in the Ugandan press. The church should have immediately condemned the Rolling Stone report.

In England, LGBT Anglicans must now work towards converting the House of Bishops and General Synod from their various shades of prejudice, intolerance, passive tolerance and active if circumspect welcome for LGBT people into a radical change of church teaching and practice. There should be no discrimination against LGBT people in congregational life or ordained ministry and access to all the sacraments, including the blessing of relationships and the marriage of same-sex couples.

A great deal of time, energy and attention has been given to the parish of St Peter’s Folkestone and to the four bishops who may leave the Church of England to join the ordinariate. Those thinking of leaving the Church of England issue threats and a bishop calls the church vicious, vindictive and fascist because they are negative, against things, ordained women, gay relationships, gay bishops (funny, that one), theologies of justice and peace. Their departure opens up space for people who feel differently, theologise differently and have a very different awareness of how God is active in their lives.

A mini-storm has been going on in the church where I worship following front page stories and pictures in the local paper about the civil partnership my partner and I are planning to contract. Some people have left the congregation, others have arrived, and the balance between conservatives and progressives has changed. Those arriving can’t fathom why the church is so obsessed in a negative way about women and gay people. God is about love, compassion, integration, justice and truth, isn’t s/he? they ask.

The sermon the Archbishop of Canterbury preached in India seems apposite. "Sometimes we have listened to the past," he said. "We have identified ourselves with our ancestors in faith. Sometimes we have listened to our own unconverted hearts and used the church of God for our own ends, welcoming people like us and rejecting those who make us uncomfortable. And when any of those things happens, the Church begins to fall apart. The wounds in the Body get wider and deeper, and we find ourselves giving great energy to justifying our decision not to be together. As we stop listening to one another, we stop listening to Christ. Whether this happens in the name of nationality or tradition or pride of achievement or purity of teaching, the effect is the same tragedy."

It would be easy to say the church is falling apart because it doesn’t unconditionally welcome women or lesbians or gays or bisexuals or transgender people or black people or people from different social strata – people “not like us”. Christians find it very difficult to listen to Christ and don’t find listening to each other much easier sometimes. A Reflections group meets monthly at my church to meditate together and talk about spirituality and faith. The conversation is very tentative because the members are unsure of their experience and of the language to describe their faith. We are learning together how inadequate the church has been in providing us with the resources to go deeper into ourselves and into God.

+Rowan was one of the people who provided me with the basic tools. If he were to focus on one thing which might stop splits from occurring in the Communion, it would be to teach people and churches how to go deeper, really deep into silence and stillness, heart and body and emotions, mystery and unknowing. But we live in a Christian era, internationally, when attending to ourselves and God in depth is one of the last things people want to commit their lives to.

Colin Coward

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Moderating and deleting inappropriate behaviour by Primates and bishops in the Anglican Communion

‘Anonymous’ continues to post comments to this blog. I have to read them to decide whether to post or bin them. It’s tedious. Sometimes I contemplate posting the less offensive in a spirit of openness and generosity, but think again. Tolerance and generosity are admirable qualities. But why would readers of a blog dedicated to the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Anglican Communion want to read counter arguments about statistics proving that gay relationships don’t last and gay men die 10 years earlier than heterosexuals or that discriminating against homosexuality is more humane than affirming something that is mutually self-destructive? You see, I knew you didn’t want to read this!

The campaign against the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Communion was launched in Kuala Lumpur in 1997. I arrived at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 feeling positive and optimistic, have been invited by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town to make a presentation (with others) to the section dealing with human sexuality. We were denied, and spent the next three weeks trying to get a hearing from whoever would listen to us. Kuala Lumpur had already achieved its goal – demonize homosexuals – from which the attempted exorcism of Richard Kirker was a natural outcome. The plenary debate was a coup for the rabid, anti-gay conservative mob (for that is what they felt like) presided over by George Carey, then Archbishop, as if they represented normal Christian behaviour and attitudes.

We were thrown onto the defensive. Meanwhile, civil society in the UK began to work it’s way swiftly towards accepting LGBT people as full members of society, educated by a government which placed equality high on the agenda. We LGBT Christians lived in a state of confusion between a progressive state and a regressive Church. Let’s put it bluntly – the Church became an insecure, hostile, negative, homophobic, abusive place for LGBT people, driving gay Christians back into the closet. Conservatives set out to deliberately to attack us, eroding our faith and spirituality in the process.

Some of their tactics, as I commented in yesterday’s blog, have been abusive and infantile. We were having to defend ourselves against this background of anti-gay rhetoric to which was added a campaign to marginalize not just us, but any church, Province, Primate or bishop who supported us.

An extraordinary, dangerous change took place. Ideas about human sexuality and models of behaviour which find legitimacy in the Bible became accepted as appropriate in the Anglican Communion when they were being recognised in the secular world as prejudiced, homophobic and wrong.

Laws were introduced in the UK to protect the rights and dignity of LGBT people. In the church our rights and dignity have been and are under constant attack. In the USA, where equality for LGBT people is still being campaigned for, supporters of LGBT equality in the Episcopal Church have argued their case in the Communion and American society with force and clarity, and been repeatedly attacked for doing so.

In the ‘tolerant’ ‘broad’ Church of England we have been far more passive. I think we failed to recognise abusive, intolerant, infantile behaviour for what it is when conservatives have repeatedly behaved in this way.

The Archbishop of Canterbury found himself enmeshed in this dynamic following Gene Robinson’s election and the vitriolic campaign against Jeffrey John led by members of General Synod. The Archbishop has been treated by other Primates and bishops in the most abusive, unchristian, infantile way sometimes. +Rowan is a Christian leader of immense dignity, emotional and intellectual maturity, wisdom, grace, tenderness and love and has endured unbearable pain and anguish for most of the eight years he has been Archbishop. We, LGBT people, have added to the tension, by simply being who we are, wanting to be recognised appropriately and arguing accordingly.

We LGBT Christian advocates allowed the conservatives to distract our attention, pushing us onto the defensive, having to develop counter-arguments to their anti-gay rhetoric. I’m trying to look at the picture in a different way now. Conservatives have focused Church attention on disagreements about human sexuality, basing their arguments on particular interpretations of scripture, tradition and reason. There are other interpretations, as many theologians have articulated, the Archbishop of Canterbury among them.

Enmeshed in these arguments, played out in mini-dramas in ACC Nottingham and Jamaica, Primates in Dromantine, Dar Es Salaam and Alexandria, Lambeth ’98, the offices of Lambeth Palace and the Anglican Communion, GAFCON, FoCA, CANA, ACNA etc., we have been unable to focus proper attention on the abusive, immature, manipulative behaviour of many of the participants in these dramas.

It has happened many, many times, but Bishop David Anderson’s advice to conservative Anglican Primates treat the next Primates’ meeting as a battleground at which they can scheme to outflank the Presiding Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury is a prime example and Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini’s reference to homosexuality as being ‘moral genocide’ another.

We will never, never come to a mature understanding of human sexuality and the place of LGBT people in society and church while bishops and Primates behave like this. They are setting an appalling, unchristian example before our Church, our Provinces and our congregations. Theirs is a disgraceful example of leadership, authority, power and spirituality.

I see this behaviour being acted out at General Synod debates on women in the episcopate, in the schismatic church bodies in North America and in the attitude towards LGBT people expressed by the majority of African Primates.

The Anglican Communion is faced with a huge challenge. How can the key decision making bodies, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates meeting and the Lambeth Conference (were the conservatives to attend) make considered, theologically competent, emotionally mature, adult decisions, when some of the participants are not able to act in a mature, adult way?

The comments posted by ‘anonymous’ may be given credence in the worlds of North American schismatics, English misogynists and African Provinces where concepts of sexual difference are novel, but at least I can moderate them and delete them when they are inappropriate. It’s not so easy to moderate and delete inappropriate behaviour from the Anglican Communion.

Colin Coward

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The Christian behaviour of Primates - do we expect appropriate or abusive, adult or infantile?

Should we expect senior Anglican leaders to behave in a mature, adult, non-abusive way? I raise the question as a result of reports ahead of the next Primates meeting to be held in Dublin in February.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has invited all the Primates, including the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Dr Katherine Jefferts Schori. The Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, the Most Revd Ian Ernest has already confirmed that he will not attend the next Primates’ Meeting because the US Presiding Bishop will be present. He wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the summer urging him to exclude her from future Primates’ Meetings and telling the Archbishop that he will not attend if his conditions are not fulfilled.

Presenting the Archbishop of Canterbury with conditions about your attendance at the Primates meeting is inappropriate. If the Archbishop has invited the Presiding Bishop and she is attending, whatever the difference of opinion in the Communion, Primates should be gracious and generous enough in their pattern of Christian life to attend. Ian Ernest issues threats and is trying to manipulate the Archbishop and it isn’t mature behaviour.

Global South Primates in general are apparently meeting later this month to discuss whether they will boycott Dublin, refusing en masse to attend.

The Rt Revd David Anderson, a suffragan bishop within the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, urges a different course of action in a letter which can be read here.

He encourages conservative bishops to attend and advises them that if Dr Jefferts Schori is there, they should either shut her out of the room or remove “by force of numbers” the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (not physically, he says, but by either voting her off the ‘island’, or recessing to another room and not letting her in). Male power in action – how gallant.

The action proposed by Bishop David Anderson is infantile. If Dr Williams objects to this action he says, the meeting could go ahead in a separate room without the Archbishop. When my outraged infant considers what action I might dream of taking in response to something that has made me angry, I quickly see it for what it is and dismiss it, turning to a more adult course of action. Not so Bishop David Anderson.

He writes that without the orthodox Primates in attendance it could be a dangerous meeting, giving opinion and credence to teachings and beliefs that are not representative of orthodox Anglicanism. He doesn’t believe staying home from the field of battle helps win a war over the truth and nature of Christianity within Anglicanism.

As he contemplates a meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, he sees war, a battle, something dangerous.

What’s more important – that partnered lesbian and gay people who chose as adults to express their love sexually in a relationship should be excluded from the Communion unless they change their behaviour and cease having sex, or that those who are responsible for the pastoral, moral and theological life of the Communion should model mature, adult, appropriate Christian behaviour?

For 7 years I have observed those Anglican leaders who claim to be orthodox acting and speaking in ways that are immature, sometimes infantile and abusive. My personal opinion as a gay Christian is that the behaviour of this group is doing far more damage to the Church than I am doing in expressing love for my partner.

Colin Coward

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How to make a difference - but first, examples of dysfunction and abuse in the Church

In my post on Saturday about the existence of gay Primates and bishops I accused the Church of England and the Anglican Communion of being infected by a culture of fear, secrecy, bigotry, intimidation, abuse, dishonesty and collusion – quite a list! I argued that the Church is going to be healthier and more Christian the more it is able to be transparent, open and honest.

I was made aware last week of the dysfunctional workings of the Crown Nominations Commission. Leaks about the deliberations of the Commission have wounded individual priests who were not asked in advance whether they wished to be nominated but who learnt subsequently that they had been rejected. None of us likes to feel rejected, especially when we are rejected in our absence with no opportunity to speak for ourselves.

I also learnt about a priest whose appointment as an incumbent was about to be announced when the diocesan bishop intervened at the last moment and vetoed the appointment – because the priest is gay. LGBT clergy can experience rejection after rejection and never know for sure whether they were not appointed because another candidate had clearly superior gifts or because of their sexuality. These rejections play on your mind – is my sexuality the reason that I have been rejected – again – and this is even more true if you have been open and honest and taken risks. So resentment against the Church and bishops builds together with a feeling that it is better to join the ranks of those who dissemble, hiding their sexuality and their partner.

The corrupting, corrosive influence of dishonesty and secrecy impinges everywhere in the life of our Church, a fear driven by a group estimated in the UK at 1.5% of the population in the latest Social Attitudes survey (though I suspect the survey underestimates the total, certainly in the House of Bishops). Forward in Faith is an organisation in which a far higher percentage of its membership than the national population is gay (not sure about lesbians). It is also one of the most homophobic environments in which to be gay, in deep denial about the sexuality of its gay priests. It isn’t surprising that it behaves corporately in such a negative, defensive way. There is a sickness at the core of this group from its leadership down which denies that gay men form a significant percentage of its membership. Being gay is not an impediment to being a Christian, a priest, a bishop, but in my view, being misogynistic, dishonest, less than your true self, is an impediment.

Let me turn to another example – the presence of lobby groups at the Primates meetings in Dromantine and Dar Es Salaam. There is a world of difference between being present to report on the meeting and to socialise with Primates and organising an operations centre in close proximity or even in the same hotel where briefing papers can be written and distributed and strategy meetings held – with conservative Primates. Ask ++Rowan and other Primates who were present about the corrosive effect of these Primates and individuals from Anglican Mainstream England and VirtueOnline USA on the trust and atmosphere inside the meeting.

What about the refusal to receive communion alongside other Primates or the refusal to attend Lambeth, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion or the Primates meeting? Isn’t this absence a denial of Christian friendship and charity, a refusal to acknowledge another’s humanity? Isn’t this utterly basic to our identity in Christ? Sadly not. Conservatives stay away because those they want to eradicate from the Communion were invited and dared to attend. It’s happening again as preparations are made for the Primates meeting in Dublin in January 2011. These threats are utterly, totally unchristian. We should not be intimidated by them and name them accurately, as actions which corrupt the life of the Church.

Yet another example – I was told by someone who chanced on them that conservative evangelicals in the English House of Bishops meet separately in the course of HoB meetings at which they discuss strategies designed to undermine and challenge the Archbishops and the mind of the House (except that there isn’t a Mind of the House but 5 or more competing sub-sets of bishops). Other groups of self-interested bishops may meet, for all I know, but this developing pattern further undermines the coherence and integrity of the House.

One bishop, not a member of the House, Alan Wilson of Buckingham, who describes himself as the most junior of the junior (no Alan, I’m more lowly and insignificant than you!) wrote on Facebook that he sees the problem exactly and it's not about the ethics of sexual identity but our own integrity as a Church. Bishops are supposed to care for the wellbeing of the Church and any organisation that loses touch with its own values threatens its own credibility. The ethics of lying are pretty simple (thou shalt not bear false witness).

How do we work towards changing this culture of secrecy and dishonesty? I maintain that it is corrosive of healthy church life, together with the behaviour of closeted LGBT people and the impact of lobby groups which are unhealthily obsessed with other people’s sexuality.

Take small steps
There are many small ways in which we can be doing something that changes the dynamic of our church life. Becoming aware, having courage to initiate conversations, remembering to question what doesn’t feel right, learning to listen to your inner voice.

Perspective
Getting the current state of affairs into a better perspective, ++Rowan, ++John, House of Bishops, General Synod, would be a dramatically significant first step. The behaviour of many in the Communion (independent of their views about homosexuality) is a disgrace which is infecting and corrupting the Church.

Build relationships
Create networks, relationships and friendships at every level of church life – and across difference – don’t allow others to marginalise us in their attempt to portray themselves as victims. It’s more difficult to be secretive, to organise conspiracies and to project onto others when you are in relationship with people rather than in denial of their presence and when you allow a holy light to shine on the encounters.

Pray
Well, obviously, for a gay activist, prayer comes first, 7am every morning! Pray openly, reflectively, trustingly, quietly attentive, yearning and listening to the loving, gentle, tender, intimate presence of God in your heart and soul. Trust – trust God, trust God’s infinite variety and complexity and simplicity in creation. Tune in to your own experience of God and trust, and pray for imagination, vision and enlightenment.

Colin Coward

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Do gay bishops and primates exist?

I am utterly fed up with being talked about as if I don’t exist, by which I mean don’t exist authentically as a gay man as if I am mistaken in my awareness of my own identity. I am utterly sick and tired of having Genesis 2 (male and female he created them), Leviticus 18.22 (you must not lie with a man as with a woman) and Romans 1.27 (and men, giving up natural relations with women, too burn with lust for one another) quoted and thrown at me as defining me as a corrupt, inadequate Christian.

For 55 years I have known my identity and I have never wavered in knowing my identity despite the 55 years in which the church has tried to undermine, chip away at and denigrate my own self-knowledge and self-confidence. For 50 years I have been maturing in faith and prayer. The constantly corrosive narrative of doubt about LGBT identity, gay maturity, gay love, gay fidelity, in the Anglican Communion and other faith communities sickens me every day (and at times in my life, literally sickened me).

Archbishop Rowan’s inability to be crystal clear about the identity, Christian fidelity and integrity of my many hundreds of LGBT friends across the Communion, some of whom are friends we share, is both intolerable – and understandable. I understand why people have a different perspective on life and life’s priorities from me – I try to be a tolerant, generous, inclusive Anglican.

I want to try and explain something which I have found hard to think about and articulate clearly but which has come increasingly into focus. I had an incredibly valuable conversation with Andrew Goddard of Fulcrum yesterday in Pimlico where his wife Lis is now Vicar of St James-the-Less. Andrew and I first met some 10 years ago and we have continued to meet regularly and enjoy an extensive conversation in which we have both travelled a long way. Talking with Andrew, who is evangelical, orthodox and traditional in his own terms, has helped me learn about myself and explore my own theology, ethics and faith. We are nowhere as far apart now in our theology and thinking as we were ten years ago, but there are still important areas of difference. Our extended conversation offers an important model to the Anglican Communion, one that I have no doubt has the blessing of Archbishop Rowan.

Yesterday with Andrew, I was able to describe with more clarity than ever before why I have deep confidence in my awareness of my sexual identity, my faith and life with God, my prayerfulness and the integrity of my calling as a priest who is gay and partnered and does not have a vocation to celibacy. What is unusual about the conversation with Andrew is that I can tell him these things, a conservative Christian, with such freedom and clarity. Usually I am conscious of the need to be cautious, defensive and self-protective when engaging with less-generous people.

Let me try and take a next step in my thoughts (in my mind these things are all connected, but it doesn’t appear quite so obvious when I try and write them down).

On Thursday I attended the Westminster Media Forum Seminar on Reflecting Diversity – the LGBT Community and the Media. Another element in my thought process came into focus. Peter Tatchell talked about the double-standard of the BBC towards LGBT issues compared with black, Jewish or Moslem issues. The BBC still sometimes presents inappropriate gay stereotypes and interviews people with extremely homophobic views such as Stephen Green of Christian Voice ‘for the sake of balance’ who, if he represents anyone, represents a tiny minority on the extreme Christian fringe. Despite this, he was given a privileged role in Sunday Morning Live on BBC 1 last Sunday, having been flown to the Belfast studio when Sharon Fergusson and myself were confined to web cams at home.

When dealing with black or Jewish issues, the BBC does not wheel out neo-Nazis or anti-Semites to provide balance but in discussions about lesbian and gay issues uses Stephen Green, a homophobe. In the context of the BBC it is generally to be expected that zero tolerance will be given towards racism or prejudice against Jews and Moslems whereas in parts of the Christian community prejudice against Jews, Moslems and women, let alone LGBT people, is held to be appropriate and justified by scripture and tradition.

NO PREJUDICE which demeans or diminishes another human being created by God is tolerable in my reading of the New Testament and the teaching of Jesus Christ. The first and greatest commandment is to love God, neighbour and self. My goodness, doesn’t Christianity have a lot to learn about prejudice, abuse and intolerance.

The next step in my thoughts – how to tackle this institutionalised, incredibly powerful prejudice against LGBT people in Christianity? Dealing with it in the BBC or the Conservative party has been child’s play compared with the Church.
Every week I discover more and more about the corrupting effect of secrecy in the Church. This week I learnt something more about the dynamics of the Crown Nominations Commission and the appointment of bishops, having already blogged about gay Primates and gay Church of England bishops. On Thinking Anglicans, Bill Dilworth questioned whether there really are 3 gay Primates and Doug said he is interested to know if there is some secret list of Bishops and Primates who happen to be gay
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Why can’t I name them? Why is the Church left guessing as to their identity? It is because of the hostility, aggression, prejudice and homophobia that is unleashed in the Anglican Communion when a gay or lesbian priest is elected as a bishop in the USA or enters the frame as a candidate in England. I put these numbers into the conversation because of the invisibility of gay Primates and bishops. Their invisibility is connected not only to the culture of institutionalised prejudice in the Anglican Communion but to deeply corrosive and corrupting culture of institutionalised secrecy and fear in the Church of England. This culture inhibits me from freely naming those bishops and Primates.

The culture of secrecy and dishonesty, the inability to be open and transparent and to communicate effectively affects Lambeth Palace, Church House, the Crown Nominations Commission, the Anglican Communion Office, General Synod, dioceses and parishes. It means that people either second-guess information or are left in ignorance. The culture is rampant and is corrupting the life of the Christian community. Every dimension of Church life is affected. People are intimidated by those who I might sometimes want to describe as prejudiced, loud mouthed bigots but whose self-image is as defenders of orthodoxy and tradition. They intimidate the ability of the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak and act freely and they intimidate me – but I have far less to lose.

At the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Jamaica in 2009 I was challenged by leading conservative campaigners to justify why I claimed in the plural that there are three gay Primates. It was the claim of gay Primates in the plural that offended them. They demanded that I prove it by naming them. I refused to tell them because I do not believe it is right to violate people’s privacy and ‘out’ anyone who prefers to remain in the closet.

So how do I know there are three gay Primates? I know one of them personally. I know who the others are and the fact that there are three was confirmed in a conversation in the departure lounge at the airport in Cairo as we were flying back to the UK. I am tempted to name the person, but that would place him or her in a very difficult position and I have no wish to do so. This is the effect of the culture of secrecy and intimidation. It inhibits me from writing freely out of respect for a Christian friend and ensures the invisibility of so many potential gay and lesbian Christian role models.

How do I know there are between 10 and 13 gay bishops in the Church of England? Some I know personally. Friends and colleagues of other bishops repeatedly confirm to me that their friend or colleague is gay. One of them, Peter Wheatley, Bishop of Edmonton, was named as gay and partnered in the national press when first appointed, repeated at the time of Jeffrey John’s trauma in Reading. Two were members of my post-ordination training group in Southwark. One I trained alongside in Cambridge. Some are married, most are single.

The teaching of the Church of England says that being gay is no bar to being appointed as a bishop, and that even being in a Civil Partnership is no bar so long as the relationship is celibate. We know that these Church of England rules cannot be applied as a result of the aggressively hostile campaign against Jeffrey John when he was nominated for Reading in 2003 and the more recent furore over the possibility that he was being considered for Southwark. Bishops who are gay know that were they to come out and talk about their sexuality they would become the focus of abuse and a campaign by conservatives to remove them There would also be an inappropriate focus on their sexuality which would follow them wherever they went. Some of the homophobes in the Church of England would set out to research their past, and I know that some of them have pasts they would prefer to keep hidden.

So the 3 gay Primates and the 10 to 13 gay CofE bishops remain invisible. I understand why they are so discrete. As I know from my own bitter experience, the consequences of being open and visible can be traumatic - hate letters, innuendo, loss of PTO or licence, unwanted attention and media interest. But until openly gay bishops are able to be appointed or until serving gay bishops can safely come out, the Church continues to live with a false reality and their experience and witness is unavailable to the Church. There are no role models (except in the USA), no bishops who can describe their experience or be interviewed by the media (except in the USA), none who can talk personally about their experience in the Primates Meeting, English House of Bishops, in General Synod or their own Diocesan Synod.

Until the culture of fear and secrecy in the Church of England changes, the bigotry is challenged and our Church becomes a place which is free from prejudice against LGBT people, the Episcopal Church will remain the only place where LGBT people can come out and be elected as bishops. I’m tempted to start a new campaign. The culture of secrecy, intimidation and abuse in the Church of England has got to be challenged, undermined and changed.

Colin Coward

Changing Attitude needs all the help we can get to further our campaign to change Anglican attitudes. To contribute to our work by becoming a supporter, please click here; or to make a donation click here.

Yearning for change in the Anglican Communion - discrimination wrong, affirmation right

I want to add my thoughts to those posted by Christina yesterday on the Times interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ruth Gledhill’s blog and The Times leader. I haven’t read any of The Times material directly, only what is available outside the firewall, so I may be commenting on inaccurate reports and I’m going to be cautious.

The Archbishop, according to Ruth, seems to have said both that he has issues about a "particular choice of life", which makes the question of gay ordination more problematic than the ordination of women because for women, that’s simply about who and what they are.

I think (though I can’t be sure) that the Archbishop is not saying that being gay is a particular choice of life (because he then goes on to say that gay celibate Christians can serve as bishops in the Church of England) but that a choice to live a non-celibate life as a gay priest or bishop is problematic.

Canon Dr Vinay Samuel has commented on the Archbishop’s interview on Anglican Mainstream. He questions the Archbishop’s assumption that being gay is who some people are, that we are not simply different in the way that some people are male, some female, some white, some black. He claims that there is still “no incontrovertible evidence to suggest that orientation is not a choice but an inherited characteristic … although many liberal proponents used orientation to mean an inherited trait.”

Orthodox Anglicans insist, he says, that gay sexual orientation is “a feeling, a choice or even possibly an outcome of certain psycho-social pressures and upbringing” and “[m]ore than two decades of research in many fields has failed to confirm that gays are born that way.” This is Anglican Mainstream’s belief and Vinay Samuel disagrees with it. He says that “if someone believes strongly that they are gay, the church is not rejecting that self understanding out of hand. It may challenge it but it is willing to accept as the way that individual understands his/her sexuality.”

I believe in the core of my being, my identity in creation and in Christ, that I am gay. To suggest, as Mainstream does, that I am mistaken about my core identity, is wounding and destructive of my whole being. Whatever the Archbishop of Canterbury says about what I am and am not allowed to do as a gay Christian priest, I need to know incontrovertibly, to use Vinay Samuel’s word, that who I understand myself to be is who I really am, and that the Church of England acknowledges my self-identity and the Anglican Communion acknowledges the identity of those across the Communion who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

If there are minority campaign groups such as Anglican Mainstream who wish to argue that I am mistaken in my self-identity, they have to freedom to do so, of course. If the Anglican Communion, in the person of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the other Instruments of Communion, fails to recognise me for who I believe I am, along with tens of thousands of other Anglicans, then our differences are profoundly serious.

The Archbishop says that from his appointment to Canterbury eight years ago he was “conscious” of the issue of homosexuality as “a wound in the whole ministry”. I hope this means that there is a wound in the whole ministry of the world-wide Communion because gay people are present as priests and bishops and parts of the Communion experience our very presence as problematic, a wound – not that being gay itself is the wound.

He said that being gay is no bar to being ordained as a priest or bishop. “To put it very simply, there’s no problem about a gay person who’s a bishop.” I take that to mean that the concerns I express above are answered by the Archbishop. I am gay and I am a priest. But Ruth queries the Archbishop. Is there really NO PROBLEM with being gay and ordained?

There are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe, such as fidelity in marriage. Lesbian and gay Christians are not challenging the church’s traditional, historic standard of the expectation of fidelity in relationship. We are questioning why lesbian and gay adults who form permanent, faithful, stable relationships should not make vows to each other in the presence of God and our congregation and have our covenant relationships blessed by the church, at least equivalent to marriage.

Ruth asked the Archbishop what is wrong with a gay bishop having a partner. “I think because the scriptural and traditional approach to this doesn’t give much ground for being positive about it. The Church at the moment doesn’t quite know what to make of it...” When asked if the Archbishop personally wished it could be overcome in some way there was silence and then: “Pass.”

It’s true that the Church corporately doesn’t know what to make of it. I would disagree that the scriptural and traditional approach doesn’t give much ground for being positive and here is one of the places that much more work needs to be done.

Is it really so difficult for the Archbishop to say what’s wrong with having partnered gay bishops, asks Ruth. He continued: “We’re in the middle of vastly difficult conversations about it, and I don’t want to put thumbs on scales.” I don’t think I understand what he means by thumbs on scales, but I most certainly understand that the conversations are vastly difficult, and not only in Africa, South America or Asia.

The conversations in my home church in Devizes about our Civil Partnership and the intention to follow it with a Communion service celebrating friendship have been intense. Some people who have been friends for 6 years have shuned me, others have left the congregation. The added pressure on our incumbent became intolerable with the result that he has taken time off. At the micro and the macro level, conversation is difficult and relationships become severed.

I am committed to developing relationships across difference following the example modeled by the Archbishop. It means going out of your way to take risks, cross the street towards people, not the other way in order to avoid them, and turning up in places where you are unlikely to receive an enthusiastic welcome from other Anglicans. The Anglican Communion, local, national and international, is not very good at doing this.

The Times leader says that in seeking a settlement within Anglicanism: “Dr Williams risks diminishing its prophetic voice. If he were to worry less about politics, he might find the resources to strengthen Anglicanism and find spiritual fulfillment of his own. For with his profound theological insight, Dr Williams is better placed than anyone to, in the words of Matthew’s Gospel, discern the signs of the times.”

Rowan’s spirituality and profound theological insight has been a core part of my inspiration since I learnt from him in lectures at Westcott House and more crucially, from joining him every morning in the chapel for 30 minutes of contemplation.

Meditating with other people every day in this way leads into an experience of prayer and encounter with God that has deepened with the passing years and infuses my work for Changing Attitude as much as it infuses the Archbishop’s ministry and role in the Communion. I can’t help but wish, with The Times, that he use his historic role of interpretation in the tradition of Christendom to affirm as a Christian leader and a theologian that discrimination against homosexuals is wrong. I wish for more, of course – that he positively affirm that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are loved by God and welcomed unreservedly by the Church, with our partners, into the threefold ministry.

Colin Coward

Changing Attitude needs all the help we can get to further our campaign to change Anglican attitudes. To contribute to our work by becoming a supporter, please click here; or to make a donation click here.