The Church of England starts at home

 the Times of London  

 

June 20, 2008

The Church of England starts at home

The faithful in London should not allow foreign Anglican bishops to dictate how they should treat gay clergy and their civil partnerships

Rev Martin Dudley

Last weekend the news broke that a City of London priest had celebrated in his church a service of blessing for two gay clergymen who had previously entered a civil partnership.

Dr Martin Dudley, the officiating priest, has since been roundly condemned by both archbishops and more ominously, by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres. There is nothing more the archbishops can do, but Chartres could revoke Dudley’’s licence to preach and celebrate the sacraments in the diocese. He might even be able to depose him from his living —— the secure tenure he enjoys at his church until he is 70 years old. The question would be, on what grounds?

The answer might take one of two directions. The only grounds for deposing an Anglican parish priest are bad behaviour, and wrong belief. Dudley could be accused of disobedience. He promised to obey his bishop (as parish priests are required to) ""in all things lawful and honest"". The bishop colludes with the general Church of England rejection of blessings for gay relationships, but it might be asked whether this attitude is either ""lawful or honest"". As is well known, the Diocese of London is awash with gay clergy, many of them appointed by Bishop Chartres, including some quite senior figures. When I was working in London, of the five parishes which abutted our own, three had gay incumbents (senior, tenured, priests), and all but one had gay curates. As did our own.

Deanery chapter meetings (a gathering of all the parish clergy in the locality) were over 50 per cent gay men and women. It did not make the slightest difference to how everyone got on with their work. There was no scandal. On the contrary, there was a lot of hard work, the Gospel was preached, and many ordinary people were cared for in the proper way that one would expect from any Anglican parish priest. It would be hard to condemn gay people and their relationships without coming under judgment as the rankest of hypocrites for accepting and exploiting our labour.

So, Chartres could take that line —— that supporting gay people in general and gay clergy in particular is somehow conduct unbecoming to a priest, but he has appointed and supported so many gay clergy that it would not make a lot of sense. And what would happen to his diocese if such a judgment ever made it to the ecclesiastical courts? It would surely usher in a witchhunt, and if that was done properly and well, he would have about 40 per cent vacancies to fill in the next year. Not a happy prospect.

Alternatively, he could try the doctrinal route —— that by blessing this happy couple, Dudley has somehow affirmed what the Church of England cannot affirm. Here too, though, there are problems. The 39 Articles, which are still supposed to be definitive for the clergy, say quite explicitly that a priest may ""marry at his own discretion"" —— no need to ask bishops about that. And then there is the 1991 report Issues in Human Sexuality which says quite clearly that faithful gay couples are to be supported and encouraged.

The various confused official statements about blessings and the rest have no real significance; they cannot really be accounted doctrine, because in effect they are all about politics —— ""what clever form of words can we find to keep the peace between warring parties?"" They have nothing to do with truth. Many church hierarchs seem anxious about the use of the word ""marriage"", and yet that is what people naturally say. When my partner and I had a civil partnership last year, our friends —— Christian and otherwise —— all referred to it as a wedding.

It is clear that around the world Anglicans are divided about gay relationships —— there is a breadth of opinion. Could a court, even an ecclesiastical one, judge that a particular perspective on that spectrum is heretical? I do not think it could. It would, after all, risk condemning many senior office-holders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

Which leads us to the core of the problem. In the Church of England, it has been said, ""it is possible for almost anyone to believe almost anything, but nobody does"". A cynical view, but certainly it seems that you can believe what you like, but if you act on it, then the bishops will come down on you.

The establishment of the Church is trapped in a reactionary circle. The increasing power of bishops during the 20th century means that the opinions of lay people are entirely disregarded. Let us have a referendum of lay people in the Diocese of London about Dudley’’s choice. But no, the opinion of Christian Londoners matters nothing in comparison with the bigotry of foreign bishops in foreign countries. I do not mean that to be xenophobic, and the international element of Anglicanism is something I much appreciate (after all, it connects us to those splendid Americans who elected Gene Robinson to be Bishop of New Hampshire —— neither Williams, Sentamu, nor Chartres was ever elected, by the way), but the Church of England began quite self-consciously as ""a local church for local people"". It honestly does not matter what they think in Nigeria or Uganda if the Anglicans of London are happy for their gay brothers and sisters to have their marital unions not only respected but blessed in London’’s churches.

It is time for people at every level —— bishops, clergy, lay people —— to stand up for what they truly believe. I tried it, and I lost my job. For the sake of thoughtful, intelligent Christianity, Dudley must not lose his.

The Rev Richard Haggis is an Anglican priest, formerly of the Diocese of London