A double-scoped vision of religion and liberalism
WHAT MAKES the Lambeth Conference, the world meeting of Anglican bishops now taking place in England, worthy of attention? Not the intra-religious squabble. Last month, dissenting bishops met separately in Jerusalem to protest church affirmations of gay people, and earlier this month, the General Synod of the Church of England approved the eventual consecration of women as bishops. These pro-gay and pro-woman breaks with biblically justified traditions are prompting talk of schism (although conservatives accept Anglican liberalism on divorce - which, unlike homosexuality and gender equality, Jesus expressly condemned).
But if these religious disagreements have an urgent larger meaning, it is because the conflict encapsulates one of the major challenges of our time: how humans preserve precious values of the past in a world of radical change.
The story of the Anglican communion, in a dynamic largely shaped by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, is as moving as it is instructive. Before World War II, true to its Tory roots, the American Episcopal Church defined the epitome of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment culture. J.P. Morgan, when criticized for the opulence of the mansion he had funded for the bishop of New York, supposedly replied, "I think the bishop should live like everyone else, don't you?"
But such self-satisfied social privilege changed. Led by ministers and laity who had been sobered by the mid-century war, Episcopalians took seriously the great lessons of the civil rights movement, feminism, gay rights, and a new skepticism toward violence. They recognized even in secular initiatives arising outside the church core values of the Gospel. Embracing such values meant letting go of lesser ones.
Over the last 50 years, the Episcopal Church has been a very model of how a conservative institution can progressively evolve step by step - beginning with the social justice witness of figures like bishops James Pike and Paul Moore, continuing with the ordination of women in the 1970s, the affirmation of gay relationships in the 1980s, the 2003 consecration as bishop of New Hampshire the openly gay priest V. Gene Robinson, and the election two years ago as presiding bishop of Katharine Jefferts Schori. At each point in this progression, some Episcopalians protested, but few defected.
Anglican churches in Canada and England have more or less followed the liberalizing American lead. Anglican churches elsewhere have more or less resisted - as is seen at Lambeth, where prominent boycotters especially include Africans. Ironically, Anglican prelates from former outposts of the British Empire see their rejection of theological liberalism as post-colonial independence, but it shores up a Eurocentric and triumphalist orthodoxy that was key to colonialism in the first place.
Despite such resistance, and a much touted nostalgia for "unity," it is clear that mainstream Anglicanism, represented by the large majority of bishops who chose Lambeth over Jerusalem, is responding as positively as it can to the broader trends toward equality, tolerance, and democratization that challenge every traditional society. Those who reject such trends may or may not break with the Anglican communion, but that is not the most important question.
Think by analogy of the revolution that unfolds right before your eyes in the way humans today obtain their news (and opinion essays). Mainstream news outlets, from the great newspapers to broadcast networks, are being challenged by a plethora of "new media," which are often grassroots-driven, radically democratic, change-minded - and sorely in need of good editing. Something like that is happening in Christian religion, as the major denominations are surpassed in membership and vitality by nondenominational mega-churches, televangelists, base communities, sectarian missionaries, and anti-institutional charismatic movements.
As journalists worry about reliability of information and analysis, some religious people wonder how the rational element in faith can be preserved in an age of cultic enthusiasm. As conservative corporate interests take ownership of old and new media outlets, reactionary fundamentalists occupy more and more of the religious landscape - leaving adrift critically minded news consumers and believers alike.
The Anglican communion is moving forward with one eye on this uncertain terrain, and one eye on what the biblical tradition actually reveals. The religious imagination is at stake - and more. Those who value faith, and those who value secular liberalism, might profitably set sight along the scope of this two-eyed vision, wishing Lambeth well.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. 