Gay journalist attacked for writing the truth

Sometimes at Anglican events like this ACC meeting, I wonder if I occupy the same reality, the same world view and norms of public engagement as some of those around me. I’ve continued to think about the encounter I had yesterday with two other journalists following the morning press conference.

One of them started by challenging me that on Wednesday I had reported something that wasn’t true. I was told I had to retract what I had written and/or explain to an ignorant public that if I write that someone is gay, I don’t also imply that they are sexually active. As I wrote yesterday, such an idea wouldn’t occur to the ordinary people I encounter in my life. They are not thinking about the sexual activity of other human beings all the time.

But my overnight thoughts – why do two Christian journalists think they have the right to put me on the spot and demand that I retract something I wrote because, without having information I have, they can't believe it's accurate. Under intense pressure, I did stand my ground and repeated several times that what I wrote I know to be true.

The information seems to be intolerable for them. I’ve pondered on the reasons why. Is it because I know something they don’t – that certainly seems to be part of the intensity of their reaction. Here in Jamaica, they we calmly, assertively, confidently aggressive (if you understand what that feels like). I was asked the same question in Alexandria by one of the journalists, but there his anger was intense.

Do journalists put each other on the spot after press briefings normally? Perhaps that isn’t an important question. More important, I suspect, is their lack of imagination. Why it is so hard for them to imagine that there are lesbian and gay people at every level of the church, sitting in meetings with them, worshipping alongside them, at every level of the church’s hierarchy. It is somehow shocking in their hearts and minds when they become conscious of gay people in places they never expected to find us. It must seem to them like a plot or a cruel joke being played by God.

It isn’t, it’s just normal, ordinary. There are people throughout the church with a different sexual identity who are as faithfully, prayerfully, lovingly Christian as they imagine themselves to be.

Journalists become the story. This is something that annoys me, not because I am put in the frame of the story, but because it distracts from reporting, accurately, what is happening here at ACC-14. Another journalist who hasn’t even arrived has written that he prays he’s not flying to Jamaica to record the final heartbeats of the Anglican Church (sic). It is really a mess at the ACC 14 meeting in Jamaica right now, he says. No it isn’t, friends, it’s really good here and impressive work is being done. It’s just that they don’t understand homosexuality and can’t accept that after years of hiding, the LGBT people God calls to faith and ministry are slowly becoming visible.

Mind you, after days like yesterday, I could wish I had remained in the closet.

What does it mean to be gay?

When someone tells you a particular person is gay, do you immediately assume that they are sexually active?

I was taken to task this morning by representatives of those who describe themselves as mainstream, global, orthodox Anglicans. I was told that if I write that there are gay primates (or bishops or priests) people will assume they are sexually active and therefore living in disobedience to church rules and teaching and not fit to be leaders of the church. That isn’t what being gay means, I said, it’s an integrated personal identity, what a person is in the same way as a heterosexual has an identity.

I was next asked, then what do I mean by gay? To be gay is about all the things that give me identity and make me a person – self awareness; emotions; relationships, intimacy, sexual desires. I was almost pounced on – so it is about being sexually active? No, I repeated, trying to remain calm. It’s living with and being aware of the whole range of emotions and desires that make us human, but not necessarily acting on them.

I was told again that if I write that there are gay primates, people will assume they are sexually active and I need to publish a correction and explanation. No I don’t, I said, because most people wouldn’t make that assumption.

The conversation continued for over 30 minutes during which I suspect I spoke for between 5 and 10 minutes. I was asked next about the Anglican Mainstream Sex and the City Conference held in Westminster 2 weeks ago when Joseph Nicolosi and Jeffrey Satinover spoke. I am to be sent a DVD so that I can see for myself the authoritative, therapeutic, non-coercive way in which these people work.

I constantly have questions in my mind about those journalists from the GAFCON/ACNA axis of the Communion who come to report on events like the ACC meeting. Here are three:

Why is it that the media representatives of those who advocate adherence to (their understanding of) Biblical teaching and church rules for homosexual people are all heterosexual males?

Why do they continually imagine that all gay men are sexually active?

Why do they think that watching a DVD about reparative therapy is going to change my mind in any way? I’m prejudiced, deeply prejudiced against reparative therapy because of conversations I have with many friends who endured ex-gay ministries and because of my own psychotherapeutic background.

Today’s conversation was fine in an Anglican way but it didn’t follow the rules or logic that I normally expect in conversation. There wasn’t ebb and flow, disagreement and convergence. Instead there was, as always in these conversations a position, a logic, an argument, an explanation presented, to which I am left struggling to respond. The next move is to introduce a subtle tangent so that I am always, always chasing to keep up with their logic. It isn’t normal. If this is mainstream orthodox Anglicanism then I have never, in 60 years of being an Anglican, ever been mainstream or orthodox, not in the way they now define it. This isn’t the orthodoxy of my youth.

At the end, I proposed that we organise a conference in which speakers from different perspectives meet and explore in a public forum the differences in our theology, ideas about identity, etc. to see what they look like when explored publicly This wasn’t thought to be a good idea. I was told it would be better to meet as we have done before under Chatham House rules so that we can protect people. Who needs protecting, I asked? I don't, I'm happy to engage in public. I have nothing to hide. If I don’t need protecting, then it must be those who argue for reparative therapy and against the full and equal inclusion of LGBT people in the Communion.

I did my best today, but these are never encounters in which normal logic or experience prevails and I felt battered at the end. There is something weird about people who believe that reparative therapy is THE Christian answer which brings healing and happiness to those who have an ‘unwanted’ homosexual attraction.

One of their lines of argument is that the percentage of the population who are gay is grossly over-estimated. The UK Government used the figure of 6% for Civil Partnerships. They would claim it is around 1%. The percentage of people seeking reparative therapy in their 1% figure is therefore going to be a negligible number.

They tell me that they are not saying that all gay people want or would benefit from reparative therapy. I always accept that if a person wants to avail themselves of the chance to become a happy heterosexual, they are free to do so.

They also repeat that no gay gene has been identified and therefore homosexuality doesn’t have a scientific reality. If it doesn’t then why are they expending so much money, time and energy ridding the church of something they believe doesn’t really exist?

I have now met in person and online thousands of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The vast majority are ordinary, well integrated adults who live healthy, responsible lives. In the UK many get on happily without the church because in comparison with society, the church is seen as prejudiced and hostile to LGBT people. In other countries, Nigeria for example, the CAN groups are engaging with ever growing numbers of gay people. Those I have met have been as healthy, normal, and ordinary/extraordinary as their UK counterparts.

Members of the self-appointed “mainstream, global, orthodox” segment of the church are doing massive damage to LGBT people across the globe. They deter gay people in the west from ever considering the church as a spiritual home or Jesus Christ as the friend who loves them unconditionally. In parts of the world where attitudes to homosexuality are punitively repressive and judgmental gay people continue to attend church but distance themselves from it and see it as an instrument of repression, supporting the prejudice of government and society.

While the Listening Process goes on (and there is no short cut and I support the listening process 100%) LGBT Christians are organising their lives independently of conservative church theology and teaching. We are not inventing a new religion or rejecting Jesus Christ as the fullness of God in human form, nor abandoning prayer or the Bible. We have confidence in God’s love for us and we number in the millions.

Compared with the several hundreds who seek out church ex-gay and reparative therapy ministries there are hundreds of thousands of LGBT Anglicans, most of them keeping their heads down, and being faithful to God’s call despite the worst the church tries to teach us about our humanity.

Is the Listening Process report good news for LGBT Anglicans?

But first, what about the suffering of the unheard North American secessionists?
The first person to rise following Canon Phil Groves presentation was Stanley Isaacs, lay delegate from Southeast Asia. He didn’t so much ask a question as make a statement.

As we receive this report on the Listening Process and the resolution, he said, can I ask this house to consider the problems that have been caused in the Episcopal Church in North America, affected by the affirmative actions on human sexuality. TEC is somewhat fractured with groups forming dioceses and provinces of their own.
There should be a listening process for those who have are affected by and suffering from these actions.

He suggested that a form of words be added to the resolution to require the Communion to listen to the case of these disaffected people - those requesting alternative Primatial oversight and seeking a total (I was tempted to write final) solution to the North American problem.

The portrayal of those seceding from the Episcopal Church as victims was repeated today by Stanley Isaacs. He spoke for a minority in North America who feel themselves to be marginalised.

If they are small, marginalised and unheard in the way described by Mr Isaacs, what do we make of the rhetoric of ACNA, CANA, AMiA, GAFCON and associated networks and groups, which constantly claim to be successful, growing, and to represent the huge majority of Christians in the Communion.

ACNA, GAFCON and the other complex variety of North American groups and networks are not unrepresented at the ACC meeting. They have bishops, priests and lay delegates from each of the African and South American Provinces to which they are affiliated.

What Stanley Isaacs clearly doesn’t understand is the oppression, prejudice and violence which LGBT people are subjected to in countries of the Communion where penal codes are harsh against homosexuality.

LGBT people have no voice in the ACC. There are no delegates who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. It is as difficult for a gay delegate to be nominated as it is for Mouneer Anis, Bishop of Jerusalem, to meet a gay person in Egypt, as his questioned indicated.

And next, what’s the point of listening to homosexuals?
The Rt. Rev. Mouneer H. Anis of the Epsicopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East rose to ask what was the purpose of, what is to be achieved by, listening? Combating homophobia is an honourable aim to achieve but we don’t know how to care for people with a homosexual orientation. Should we be caring if we tolerate the practice of homosexuality?

He said that when he was a doctor in Iraq, he knew people with a homosexual orientation who wrote him secret letters seeking help. Secret, because homosexuality is something abnormal, a shameful thing, a crime in our culture and people can be punished if they are spotted practising homosexual activity.

It is difficult in some Provinces (because of these legal and cultural attitudes) to have actual listening. He had invited an Egyptian homosexual he had met at the Lambeth Conference to come and talk with him, but the man didn’t come. I would welcome the listening process across the Provinces, Dr Anis said.

I sensed a genuine conflict in Mouneer Anis as he spoke. He was troubled by the supreme difficulty he confronted of finding a homosexual person in his own country to have a listening conversation with. I disagree with his understanding of homosexuality but I think he is genuinely confronting himself and the issues being raised.

He continued - God witnesses to what I am saying, that one bishop said to me, I disapprove of practising homosexuality. I know it is contrary to scripture but I can’t say this openly because my diocese is dependent on finance from the West. The dilemma experienced by bishops such as this needs to be addressed. It is exactly this kind of coercive, manipulative relationship about which Canon Phil Groves was speaking and which makes transparent, trusting listening impossible.

Bishop Anis, a medical doctor, distinguishes between having a homosexual orientation and being a practising homosexual. I’m not sure whether, when he uses the word orientation, he means that homosexuality is wilfully chosen as a movement away from the heterosexual norm, or he genuinely recognises homosexuality as an identity.

Mouneer Anis and Stanley Isaacs have internalised an interpretation of Scripture and church teaching that sexual activity between people of the same gender is always, under any circumstances, condemned by God.

They have a problem imagining the possibility that being gay and practising being gay, as Bishop Anis puts it, can and should be integrated and that to split, dis-integrate the identity and physical expression of love for another person is to damage the humanity and integrity of lesbian and gay people.

Is the report good news for LGBT Anglicans?
My answer – no if you live in a country which has already granted near-equality to LGBT people – yes if you live in a country where gay people are criminalised and live in secrecy and fear.

The continuing Indaba and mutual listening project offers the possibility of real meeting and listening across difference with LGBT people in Provinces where little or no work has yet been undertaken. The process will be slow and demand almost infinite patience and trust, but it holds out the possibility of real change on all sides.

There’s nothing here for members of Changing Attitude or Integrity who are planning a wedding or Civil Partnership in the next year and want a blessing in church, nor for those partnered priests who are just waiting for that letter from Downing Street confirming their Episcopal ambition.

The Listening Process on Human Sexuality – Canon Phil Groves reports to the ACC in Jamaica

As I refer to my notes, I realise that Canon Phil Groves packed a lot of information into his half hour presentation to the ACC meeting this afternoon. He briefly outlined the work done and the nature of the process he advocates – to encourage trust and transparency, providing wider resources for listening and dialogue, seeking to reflect the Anglican way.

He referred to the book he edited prior to the Lambeth Conference – The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality – which is not an answer but a representation of the diversity of opinion in the Communion.

Don’t Throw Stones
For the first time, the “Don’t Throw Stones” initiative, of which I have been a founder member, was introduced to the delegates http://www.dontthrowstones.info/. It is a practical outworking of the Dromantine Communiqué statement that ‘the victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us’.

Phil Groves asked how we welcome lesbian and gay people, how we show love, how we create a safe space for gay Christians?

Table discussion
At this point he asked the delegates to hold a brief table discussion, sharing their impressions of whether listening has happened in their Province, what might help it to happen and whether it should or shouldn’t happen. After 5 minutes he tried to continue but lively conversations were still taking place. Five minutes later, delegates were still reluctant to stop their conversations. A few delegates I asked after the session said the conversations had barely scratched the surface but were revealing. Clearly there is an appetite to talk more, but I don’t think they will be given the opportunity.

Windsor Continuation Group recommendations
The Windsor Continuation Group has made two recommendations:

24. Only if the dialogue is seen to continue, and if there is an all-round readiness to engage in conversation and discernment on this issue, is there a hope of persuading the advocates of revision in the teaching of the Anglican Churches on this matter to remain committed to the period of "gracious restraint", in which mutual conversation can take place. On both sides, we need to move from intransigence and the conviction that "our" interpretation is the right one to a shared waiting upon God. There is something profoundly important about the Anglican way here - a readiness to acknowledge that Christian disciples discern God's truth by learning to wait upon one another, and that it takes the whole Church to know the whole truth.
25. We request that the Instruments of Communion commit themselves to a renewal of the Listening Process, and a real seeking of a common mind upon the issues which threaten to divide us.

Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Project
Phil Groves proposed opening up new ways of moving forward.

The first is a continuing Indaba process from the Lambeth Conference 2008, a process of seeking a common mind drawing upon non-western cultural models. An adversarial model, for or against motions, is not always helpful. He seeks trust and transparency in face to face encounters.

Trust has to be continually worked at to avoid the feeling of being manipulated. There also needs to be trust that we are not trying to alter the gospel.

Indaba takes time and is designed to move beyond mutual listening to synthesis a common purpose. How long does it take? “Enough” is the answer. The continuing Indaba process will seek to:

• Use theological resources to inform the process of seeking a common mind by the utilisation of theologians around the world reflecting on Scripture and the traditions of the church in the context of diverse cultures, with an emphasis on non-western cultures and to publish them in culturally appropriate forms.
• Develop and publish training material for the convening and facilitation of Anglican Indaba processes.
• Run five pilot conversations, typically each one involving three diverse dioceses. They will focus on mission issues for each diocese and not avoid hard questions – not only related to sexuality, but also to the authority of Scripture, faithfulness to tradition and the respect of the dignity of all. The hope will be that the result of the conversations will be a depth of agreement and the clarification of disagreement resulting in positive missional relationships.
• Run theological and process evaluation groups to see if the process is faithful to the Anglican way, valuable in enabling mutual mission and replicable across the Communion.

Funding from Moorhouse School of Medicine
Perhaps the most dramatic revelation us that funding is being provide by Dr David Satcher former U. S. Surgeon General and Director of the Sacker Health Leadership Institute at the Moorhouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. The funding, for 2.5 years, is part of the School’s work in consensus building processes among leaders.

A time for questions followed, which often reveals the thinking of particular delegates, and this occasion was no exception. I’ll post in a separate blog.

The abusive language and myths used about TEC

The Rev. Philip Ashey has commented on the Pastoral Visitors Scheme and the idea of mediated conversation on parallel jurisdictions on the Anglican Mainstream website http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=10168#more-10168.

It is the language he uses about the Episcopal Church which interests me more than his analysis of the proposed scheme. Philip uses abusive phrases about the Episcopal Church which occur time and again on the websites of those who have left TEC and seek to create a alternative province. The target of their campaign was initially the Episcopal Church, to which the Church of Canada was later added. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the processes being followed by the Communion (Windsor Report, Covenant, etc.) and the role of staff at the Anglican Communion Office have also come under attack.

Philip Ashey uses these phrases about the Episcopal Church in his article:

“the revisionist leadership of TEC”
“the false gospel of TEC”
“false teaching”

I have attended the last two General Conventions of the Province. I have worked closely with leaders and volunteers from Integrity, the Chicago Consultation and other staff members and congregational members of TEC.

Those who have separated from TEC have constructed a myth about the church to which they used to belong. The phrases “revisionist leadership” and “false gospel and teaching” are used repeatedly to poison the mind of other Provinces towards the Episcopal Church.

They are not true. If TEC has revisionist leadership, a false gospel and false teaching, then so does the Church of England and so do I. But I don’t. No time to outline my theology here, but my friends in the congregation at St John’s Devizes would vouch for my orthodoxy and my passion for the Gospel and the mission of the Church.

As a Christian, I find the poison that those who have left the Episcopal Church introduce into their narrative and strategy against TEC difficult to stomach. It sickens me.

All parties to the conflicts in the Communion make mistakes and from time to time, categorise those from other networks in ways that are false. I don’t like being called a pansexualist. To me, that’s another way of denigrating my integrity, my sexuality and my Christian life and witness. Pansexualists are among those categorised as revising teaching and bearing a false gospel and false teaching.

While I’m writing about this, let me add my irritation (to put it mildly) with the portrayal of those who have left TEC as the victims in the dispute, and TEC and LGBT people as those with power at the centre of decision making – if only!

Philip Ashey says those who left TEC have been rewarded by “inhibition, deposition, loss of income, costly litigation, and/or loss of their churches.” They are “victims of TEC’s attempt to literally destroy them corporately, individually, and financially.”

Philip Ashey is here at the ACC meeting, the priest nominated by Archbishop Henry Orombi as the Ugandan clerical delegate to the ACC whose nomination was declined because he was deemed to be not duly qualified. He is Chief Operating Officer of the American Anglican Council.

Oh, and he doesn’t think a Pastoral Visitors scheme would experience any more success than the Panel of Reference. He thinks the Windsor Continuation Group recommendations miss an opportunity to bless the mission of the ACNA.

Anglican Peace and Justice Network panel on homosexuality

I have managed to acquire a copy of the report compiled by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network from its meeting in Seoul, Korea from 14-21 April 1999, referred to in yesterday’s press conference.

The sixty page report outlines thirteen areas of concern, the final one being a report from the panel on homosexuality. The report says:

The Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN), in response to the Lambeth resolution to engage in dialogue with the gay and lesbian community, heard a presentation from both lesbian and gay men’s organisations from Seoul, Korea. Much of the emphasis of the presentations focussed on the human rights aspects of gay and lesbian issues. The speakers noted the church as a major source of repression of homosexuals and asked that the power of love given in Jesus Christ be used as a basis for understanding and accepting gay and lesbian people.

The APJN recognised deep divisions on the subject of homosexuality that surfaced after the Lambeth resolution, especially the section on how scripture is used to discuss homosexuality and on the blessing of same sex unions and ordaining those involved in same gender unions. These concerns exist largely in the Anglican Communion’s northern provinces, but also emerge elsewhere in the Communion and should not be seen exclusively as a Western subject. The Network agreed to continue to consider the justice dimensions of the debate over homosexuality, in the hope of contributing to the dialogue called for in the Lambeth resolution.

Network Recommendation to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) September meeting

The Network asks the ACC to affirm that human rights exist for all people and that there can be no exceptions to the universal principles of those rights in the UN Declaration, including the rights of gays and lesbians. Further, the ACC is encouraged to recognise that homosexual persons are children of God and to affirm that section of the Lambeth resolution that assures the church’s gay and lesbian members “that they are loved by God…and are full members of the Body of Christ.” This affirmation is crucial to the well being of our church communities where gay and lesbian members are present. Finally, the Network asks the ACC to consider ways in which dialogue on Anglican approaches to interpretation of Scripture may be implemented so that the Communion may better engage the general subject of human sexuality.

The APJN report from Korea is not available on the Anglican Communion web site. The ACC meeting held in Dundee in September 1999 passed a 3 line resolution from the APJN: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/meetings/acc11/resolutions.cfm#s16. The report was welcomed and commended to the Provinces for reflection and action.

The third paragraph from the panel on homosexuality asked the ACC to affirm, encourage and consider action. It did none of these things because the paragraph asking for action was withheld, apparently on the instruction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.

The APJN seems to hold a position towards lesbian and gay people which is at odds with the position adopted by the entirety of Lambeth resolution 1.10. The breadth of representation at the Seoul meeting was from across the whole Communion, and the members of the Network were united in their support for the panel on homosexuality. One person present at the meeting agreed that lay people and those in touch with the grass roots were far less prejudiced about or obsessed with homosexuality as an issue than their bishops and primates.

Yesterday was the first time I became aware that the APJN had addressed homosexuality and made recommendations to the ACC. The report was effectively suppressed. Thank goodness someone had brought a copy to Jamaica. It is still possible that the APJN will help direct the Communion to a more understanding and positive commitment to the rights of lesbian and gay (and next time, bisexual and transgender) people. I’m not holding my breath, but I keep discovering hidden resources which have the potential to help change the whole Communion’s attitude.

Archbishop of Canterbury emphasises patience and reconciliation, not instant resolution

The Archbishop of Canterbury, responding to a question at the end of an hour long session on the Windsor Continuation Group report, offered “naught for your comfort.” Mr Abraham Yisa, lay delegate from the Church of Nigeria, had said: “We have listened this number of years with nothing coming, there has to be a point when we stop. There is endless listening, ad infinitum, we have to make a decision.”

It was a heartfelt plea for closure, with which +Rowan empathised. But with passion he said that sooner or later we would have to hear the voice of Jesus saying, there is your brother, there is your sister, go and cut through the briars that divide you and be reconciled with them. “Reconciliation at the level it matters between Christians,” said +Rowan, “is something that takes as long as it takes.”

Archbishop Rowan was presenting the report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) to ACC-14. He briefly outlined the history which prompted the work of the WCG, presented the 10 recommendations from the report and spoke briefly about the concept of ecclesiastical deficit which appears in the report.

The first two recommendations – about The Listening Process and The Moratoria – most affect LGBT people.

The report asks for a move on both sides to a shared waiting upon God. The Archbishop said there has to be an attempt in every Province to find what stage we are at in discussions about human sexuality and move to where the Communion is as a whole on human sexuality. The report recommends that serious study of homosexuality and the Listening Process should be continued, reinforced and deepened. Without this, the appeal for restraint on all three moratoria will sound hollow. The report argues that we share our hopes, convictions and fears more honestly. A report on the Listening Process will be presented on Wednesday afternoon.

When the report asks for a shared waiting upon God, to whom is it addressed? - to bishops, Provinces and church structures, or to individual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Anglicans? We, individual LGBT Anglicans, are already where the report doesn’t want us to be. In the UK we, lay people and priests and bishops (retired if not active), contract Civil Partnerships and the equivalent happens in other parts of the Communion,. We are already living a pattern of life the church claims to judge and inhibit, and we are not and will not be inhibited.

Provinces may act with restraint in withholding consent for partnered gay men and lesbians to be elected or appointed and consecrated as bishops and in formally approving liturgies of blessing. But in the UK there are many partnered lesbian and gay lay people and priests and parishes offering services of prayer and dedication (and blessing).

Addressing the moratoria, Archbishop Rowan said the report hopes that Provinces will hold back from actions which deepen divisions or make the holding of conversations more difficult. The moratoria are not intended to throw blame around the Communion. The actions taken so far have deepened, not resolved our divisions and we all need, simultaneously to step back from the brink.

The moratoria are the means by which we offer one another space, holding back from something the Communion as a whole is unable to commit itself to. Are Provinces prepared to hold back from doing those things inhibited by the moratoria while we have a conversation about why we think this is a good thing? The North American churches need to be heard describing why, with same-sex blessings and ordinations, they have explored this in depth and believe it to be right, with the same generosity accorded to conservatives.

Before we say goodbye to each other, said +Rowan, we owe it the Lord of the Communion to have this conversation.

The final recommendation of the report addresses mediated conversation on parallel jurisdiction. In North America, the Archbishop said, there is more than one body claiming the name Anglican. We are faced with a very anomalous situation – can we go forward without too much destructiveness, bitterness or litigation? Money is apparently available for mediated negotiation – I wondered whether the willingness is there on all sides to commit to such a process.

Archbishop Rowan concluded by talking about the meaning of ecclesiastical deficit, by which is meant, we are not sure what sort of church we believe in for ourselves as an Anglican Communion – whether we want more or less communion, cohesiveness and inclusiveness. It is a discussion we need to have.

There may be ruptures ahead and the Anglican Communion may not survive this crisis in the form it has taken over the last 20 years. I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury telling the Anglican Consultative Council with deep confidence that they have to take the responsibility of making decisions this week. Now is not the time for closure. Conversations have to continue. Listening has to continue. Extra miles have to be journeyed, in the company of Jesus, seeking reconciliation and understanding to the nth degree. I think +Rowan is placing the future of the Communion in the hands of God and the ACC and expecting the delegates to take mature, adult, deeply Christian decisions about the future of the Communion.