Anglicans in Tanzania

The Anglican Church worldwide is meeting in Tanzania. While not much has been said in most secular news outlets yet, religious news sources are waiting for potentially significant events to unfold. After three days, little has leaked out, except for the news that seven global south church leaders refused to share communion with ECUSA presiding Bishop Kathryn Jefforts Schiorri, over her continuation of her predecessor's endorsement of the ordination of openly homosexual bishop Gene Robinson.

Some Anglicans see this lack of overt fireworks thus far as a sign that nothing will come of this meeting. Perhaps the Orthodox numbers are too small to effect a disciplinary stance toward ECUSA. But the Global South Bishops are led by men who have faced longer odds and more significant pressures. Peter Akinola of Nigeria has dealt with violence and church burnings by Muslim radicals. Emmanuel Kolini has faced genocide in Rwanda. His colleague, John Rucyahana has as well.

Rucyahana has co-written a lengthy petition for retaining orthodoxy as part of the organization SPREAD, the "Society for the Propogation of Reformed Evangelical Anglican Doctrine". The petiton can be found here. It includes a clear statement about Biblical authority.

The claim that Scripture can be “legitimately” interpreted to permit the Church’s approval of same gender sexual relations requires the dismissal of said moral commandment and all the large, consistent and un-contradicted support therefore elsewhere in both the New and Old Testaments. Such dismissal is accomplished by a methodology that exaggerates and perverts the Scriptural doctrine of grace to “correct” whatever the interpreter regards as “repressive,” “immoral,” “legalistic” or “judgmental” in Scripture. The users of this methodology: (1) place Scripture against itself; (2) make God the author of error; and (3) elevate themselves above Scripture. This manner of interpretation must be dismissed out of hand for being in direct contradiction to: (1) the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 3:17-20); (2) the nature of Scripture as “God’s Word written;” and (3) the explicit teaching of the Articles of Religion (Articles VII, XX).

It is made very clear that the issue of homosexuality is the symptom, not the disease. Rather, the rejection of the authority of the text of scripture is what threatens Anglicanism. The petition divides the Anglican movement into three camps, the revisionists which it associates with Frank Griswold and Rowan Williams, the pragmatists, who don't explicitly approve of gay ordination but use unity arguments in a way that thwarts dealing with the issue, and the orthodox Anglicans, led by Akinola.

The revisionist wing tends to stall and encourage endless discussion to keep firm judgments at bay. The Spread Document quotes former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, who favors gay ordinations:

I think ... no action of General Convention and no action of the House of Bishops, is going to bring in the new age with respect to sexuality. The fact is that we are going to live the question, live the difference for the foreseeable future. And then the question is, as I said earlier: Do we do that in peace? Do we do that with respectfulness toward one another recognizing that there is integrity in a number of positions? No one has the corner on the truth in this area.”(Id.).

Note the tactic. Make no decision - live with indecision because.. no one knows the truth. The Spread petition comments:

Griswold thus states that the only way the (orthodox) Anglican group can remain in communion with the revisionist and traditionalist/pragmatist groups is for the Anglican group to give up the belief that Scripture has a monopoly on the truth in matters of faith and practice.

And to further the point that gay unions and ordinations are the tip of the iceberg, the petition itemizes the ways in which a weakened view of scripture has polluted Anglicanism in the west with other unChristian viewpoints:

Having disposed of Scripture in order to open the way for their churches’ approval of same gender sexual relations, the proponents thereof have also opened the way for the denial of every tenet of the Anglican Faith and every imaginable kind of teaching in place thereof.
Primates, bishops, priests, and seminary professors of Western churches variously: (a) deny, inter alia, the need for faith in Christ for salvation, the resurrection of Christ, and the Atonement; (b) describe the Trinity as a “homophilial/homoerotic image of relations
between males;” (c) use revised creeds; (d) rewrite the Lord’s Prayer; (e) pray to “Sophia God;” (f) approve of non-Christian paths for salvation; (g) promote a new world religion in place of Christianity; and (h) telecast a “New Image of God” around the world. Gnosticism is embraced. Druid, new age, pagan, Hindu and Buddhist gods and goddesses are worshipped. What is happening is what Cranmer prophetically feared when he said “if there were any word of God beside the Scripture, we could never be certain of God’s Word; and if we be uncertain of God’s Word, the devil might bring in among us a new word, a new doctrine, a new faith, a new Church, a new god, yea himself to be a god.”

So on the eve of the Tanzania gathering, SPREAD quietly published a more comprehensive view of things. At issue in particular, with Global South conservatives, is the trustworthiness of Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in supporting the cause of biblical orthodoxy. Williams has long been known to be sympathetic to the gay cause, but recently has made statements that might indicate a more conservative leaning. Thus a 150 page document "Rowan Williams and Scripture: A Review of the Archbishop ofCanterbury Rowan Williams’s Teachings and Use of His PowersConcerning the Authority of Scripture" seeks to clearly publish three decades of Williams unequivocal support for revisionist teaching.

For example, in 'Open to Judgement" a 1994 publication of his sermons and musings,
"Williams dismisses Scripture as a reliable source for discerning “the mind of God.” Williams contends therein that we should not read Scripture with “a kind of blind and thoughtless obedience to every word of scripture as if it simply represented the mind of God.” Williams then asserts that the reason we should not do so is that the “writers of scripture” were “caught up in the blazing fire of God’s gift yet struggled with it, misapprehend[ed] it, and misread it.” In short, Williams says we cannot rely on Scripture because the writers thereof did not correctly discern “the mind of God.”

There is far too much to summarize regarding Williams open support of revisionist readings of scripture and endorsement of gay causes. The document cites numerous pro-gay books for which Williams wrote "laudatory reviews, forwards, or endorsements", such as:

Just Good Friends: Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Relationships (1996); ‘The Other Way’? Anglican Gay and Lesbian Journeys (1998); Seeking the Truth in Love: The Church and Homosexuality (2000); Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001); Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings (2002); and Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures (2004, 2005).

To be more specific, the last entry, Good As New:

was written by John C. Henson, whose website states that he is “A member of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement from its early days” and “for many years he assisted the movement as the contact person for the South Wales group and as counsellor.” Williams’s endorsement of the book appears on its cover as: “‘A presentation of extraordinary power’ Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.” In his forward to the book, Williams in effect urges the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion to read the book when he says that it should “spread in epidemic profusion,” as follows: [Henson’s] work is for a large part of the ‘religious’ reading public a well-kept secret; I hope that this book will help the secret to be shared and to spread in epidemic profusion to religious and irreligious alike.

In Good As New, Henson, among other things: (a) includes the “Gospel of Thomas;” (b) omits Revelation and seven other books of the New Testament; (c) eliminates the masculinity of God the Father and God the Son and makes the Holy Spirit feminine; (d) treats the temptation of Christ as a solely human event without any mention of Satan; (e) eliminates the existence of demons; (f) asserts Jesus said we should not search for the narrow way any more than we should look for sawdust in the eyes of others; (g) rewrites passages of the book of Romans concerning same gender sexual relations to make no mention thereof, and says in a footnote that the standard versions of “these verses have been shamefully used as a basis for the discomforting of those with a same-sex orientation;” (h) describes the conditions for appropriate committed same-sex relationships or partnerships; (i) says that Paul rejects celibacy and instead advocates to not “go long without sex;” and (j) cites Paul as saying “my advice is for everyone to have a regular partner…if you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated.”

Williams' view of orthodoxy is made clear:

Orthodoxy is not a goal, a pattern of conformity to the mind of God revealed in the Scriptures. Rather, it is a tool, a process of breaking and remaking. Like the Bible, it is about method, not content. Certain and sure theological knowledge is for the fundamentalist who lacks critical self-awareness.


What will happen in Tanzania is not clear. That Bishop Rucyahana, with Bishop Charles Murphy have courageously published this well documented statement about Williams long held beliefs and writings is encouraging. I do not believe the Global South Bishops will back down from their orthodox and biblical principles. But whether they will have the numbers to force discipline on the western revisionists is another question. I suspect there will be a separation, a "walking apart" of some sort. The African bishops will not remain in communion with false and anti-Christian beliefs. This meeting should lead to some definitive drawing of lines.

I only hope that evangelicals in this country are watching. I see the same slow and subtle loss of scriptural authority through new and novel hermeneutics overtaking the thinkers and influential leaders of the larger evangelical movement. While the advocates of the new and novel insist they are not the same as old Liberals in the mainline, the epistemological commitment is similar and the approach to scripture is similar as well. Can the end result really be significantly different?