Should this Column Deal with Political Issues?

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 24 February 2011 48 Comments
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Question

I am interested in hearing your reflections on the proposed Anglican Communion covenant. I have read it through once and have not totally digested its meanings. My overall view is that it seems like a lot of rules to keep unruly Anglicans/Christians/ Episcopalians in line. The simple covenant would seem to be yours: Live life fully, love wastefully and be all that you can be. Help me here. I look forward to hearing your comments.

Answer

Dear Jeffrey,

I think you hit it on the head. I see the proposed Anglican Covenant as little more than a document designed to assure conformity to yesterday’s understanding of reality. I have great affection for my Anglican heritage, but the Anglican Communion is about as relevant to the world today as the British Empire! In fact, the Anglican Communion is the last vestige of that empire. It is a way that the English pretend, at least ecclesiastically, that they still control the world.

The genius of the Anglican Communion to me is that it has no authoritative Pope and no literal Bible. That means we move like an amoeba shooting out a pseudopod here and then there. The result of that is that the Anglican Communion does not now and never has moved in lockstep. I value that! Any instrument that would try to move us in a different, more institutionally organized direction will, in my opinion, destroy the effectiveness of our witness. I wonder why churches cannot admit that the truth of God is not anyone’s or any institution’s possession. They all pretend in some way that they are the “one, true church.” Anglicanism challenges this idolatry by daring to walk through history as a loosely organized collection of national churches each trying to be faithful to God in its own context and in its own time. I wonder why that is not seen as a virtue.

The agenda for the Covenant comes primarily from the more homophobic elements of our church in the third world and their somewhat archaic allies in the evangelical wings of the Anglican Church in the developed world. The “Covenant” represents the pitiable attempt on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury to find a place amid the conflicts of our day, where he can stand with integrity without having to put himself on the line against the bible quoting homophobia of those who think that unity can ever trump truth. These right wing religious zealots are on the wrong side of history and in the attempt to impose a “Covenant” on the Anglican Communion are trying to build a religious Maginot Line to hold back the future. I think it will fail but, if it by some chance succeeds, I think the Anglican Communion will die.

Thank you for your letter.

John Shelby Spong

 

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48 thoughts on “Should this Column Deal with Political Issues?

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