Homophobic Church Leaders vs. Their Flock

It’s interesting, that at a time when Stonewall has released a report which suggests that Church leaders are significantly more homophobic than their flock, it’s curious to see that the Rt Rev Daniel Deng – Archbishop of Sudan – has demanded at the Lambeth Conference that Bishop Gene Robinson resign for the sake of the Anglican Church:

“The people who consecrated him should confess to the conference because they created an outcry in the whole Anglican world. God is not making a mistake creating Adam and Eve – he would have created two Adams if he wanted. If he was a real Christian he would resign.”

If you’re reading this and gay, this argument will likely be one you’ve had thrown at you at least once before. A variation on Adam and Steve, eh? Such a tedious stereotype, which you’d expect of a child, or a young person, without any experience of self-reflection, not a so-called man of God. He’s actually demanding that Robinson collude in the bigotry of others – the arrogance is breathtaking. However:

Ben Summerskill, the Stonewall chief executive, said: “Witnessing the tragic divisions in the Church of England demonstrated at this week’s Lambeth Conference, it’s telling that so many people of faith say they actually live, work and socialise with lesbian and gay people, and that significantly reduces negative ideas about difference.”

Proof, albeit not necessarily definitive, that people are not as stupid as their representatives, either political or those of faith. In this country at least, it suggests that equality legislation has proven Gene Robinson’s approach right, in demonstrating to his ‘moveable middle’ of the religious community, that with full civil rights for us the world doesn’t come to an end – plagues don’t come down, social order doesn’t break down. Nutters like Deng can’t speak for them, because Stonewall’s side of social change is having an effect, in increasing our visibility through normalising everyone’s treatment before the law. The same approach is needed within the established Church, and Gene Robinson must stay put at all conceivable costs. In a society governed by the rule of law, to exclude religion from the need for equality really must be out of the question, partly on humane grounds, partly on those of diversity – just look how much better society operates when we all are free to take part equally within it!

I can’t help but be reminded by this of the fight in 2004 over same-sex marriage in the US (which of course persists). The persistent argument was that same-sex marriage on equal terms to heterosexuals would undermine heterosexual marriage – somehow if we were granted equal rights, it would be at the expense of those who already had them. It was homophobic nonsense when articulated by George W Bush, it is homophobic nonsense uttered now by Archbishop Deng.

Perhaps most alarmingly from the Archbishop:

Deng said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan.

Like Iran eh? Uganda? Nigeria? This claim, if not countered, is the most dangerous of all because it doesn’t allow for a difference of opinion, for shades of grey, or any scrutiny at all. He could say Robinson should resign because it’s politically necessary at this time in the Church’s history. My opinion in response would be to disagree – the opposite is politically necessary – but instead he’s playing up to homophobic superstitions, no doubt shoring up a cheap power base, which only encourages those who would dehumanise us. In Iran Ahmadinejad’s identical claim legitimises the torture and execution of gay people; for a man of God to offer the same argument is beyond shameful.

Religious Homophobia – Emboldened!

First it was Lillian Ladele, now it’s Graham Cogman, a civil registrar, followed by a (surprise surprise) policeman, both of whom think that as Christians they have special rights which allow them to opt out of the flow of mainstream society, which is increasingly understanding towards diversity and respectful of equality. As my fellow blogger said the other day:

Beliefs are beliefs, they should be respected in as far as they don’t try to limit other people’s freedoms.

Yet policeman Graham Cogman, displaying no hint of irony in ‘coming out’ as a homophobic policeman, is following the same path as Lillian Ladele in trying to morally relativise homophobia within the diversity agenda, in arguing that as a Christian he doesn’t have to support the gay community:

The 49-year churchgoer, who circulated emails to officers quoting the biblical stance on homosexuality being a sin, claims he is being singled out because of his beliefs. The force has responded by saying it will not tolerate any “homophobic behaviour”.

Of course as a policeman you’d think he wouldn’t feel the need to justify his homophobia, yet he is claiming that as the Norfolk Police pursues its diversity agenda he is being ‘victimised’ because he believes gay sex is immoral. I know I’m not alone in getting quite sick to death of this, particularly hearing:

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult,” he said.

“I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.”

A Christian officer eh? No, you’re a police officer you idiot. You don’t get to pick and choose who you get to support and not support because of your religion, you have to serve and respect everyone equally. Of course it’s biased against you if you’re a homophobe because you don’t get to trample on other people’s rights because of your beliefs.

I’ll never in my life be a Christian, but can see full well that, particularly during this period of the Lambeth Conference, there has never been more of a need for Gene Robinson and people like him. These ideas of Cogman’s didn’t come out of the blue – he was taught the idea that gay people are less than straight people, and had it justified because of religion, when that religion preaches nothing of the sort. The Church, particularly because it is an established Church, really has to get its own house in order and start accepting that it can’t continue to preach discrimination and delude people like PC Cogman into an erroneous belief that they can withold equal treatment from the people they work for, not just because of magic and superstition, but because of outright homophobic lies. Homophobia is no less real when ‘justified’ by scripture and religion.

Of Demons and ‘Negative Foreign Cultures’

A war of prejudices is being played out at the Lambeth Conference, or more precisely through the absence of key bishops, ostensibly on the grounds of homophobia. That they dress it up as justified under a ‘post-colonial settlement’ doesn’t make it any less bigoted or unjustified, and the thing is most of them are African. Ian Baxter, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, after his visit to the breakaway Gafcon in June wrote:

“One of the things in “The Way, the Truth and the Life,” one of the key points that you’ve written is to “prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centred” But the gospel is already compromised by bishops who support the jailing of lesbian and gay people throughout Africa, which then leads to rape, which leads to torture of people and yet they are not prepared to speak out against this and change the laws in their countries.”

Archbishop Akinola chose to respond, informing the world that he did not know of any such cases.

I asked again, was he really not aware of any who were in jail for being lesbian or gay?

He said he was not, and challenged me to give him an example.

This, I am sure, is where God intervened with one of his divine “coincidences”. My church in Manchester, the Metropolitan Community Church, has begun a campaign on behalf of Prossy Kakooza, a 26-year-old woman seeking asylum in the UK. She fled Uganda after suffering vicious sexual, physical and verbal attacks due to her sexual orientation. I had brought copies of the information about the case, with the hope of being able to distribute them to members of the media covering the conference. While answering Peter Akinola’s challenge to give him an example, I was able to reach down and pull the information out of the laptop bag at my feet and give the example requested.

The Archbishop then spoke at length about African culture and beliefs, and this was echoed by Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda. Neither of them chose to condemn the violence or comment on the particular case of Ms Kakooza.

Further questions followed but, just before the end, Riazat Butt of the Guardian asked a follow-up to my original question. Would the Archbishops condemn the torture and rape of Lesbian and Gay people? Again they would not.

Really telling, isn’t it? These are supposed to be spiritual men, who love their neighbour as themselves. And yet the conditionality that’s there undermines their entire calling. This isn’t a surprise when people like the Ugandan President ‘reject’ homosexuality:

The Ugandan President has spoken of his country’s “rejection” of homosexuality during a speech he gave at the wedding of a former MP’s daughter.

Yoweri Museveni said the purpose of life was to create children and that homosexuality was a “negative foreign culture.”

Right, so it’s because of those nasty old colonialists or it’s even our own imagination – it isn’t freely occurring in Africa. I remember the other night listening to Bishop Gene Robinson, who couldn’t understand how people could refuse to use their intellects to make reasonable interpretations of the Bible. The answer of course with people like Museveni is that there’s money and power in it – there always has been when people have played to people’s ignorance and fear throughout history. The film also showed just how 20th century a phenomenon it was to have individuals who were prepared to make all-time judgments and definitions of the Bible, life and existence, when it had previously been and is increasingly now seen as a text which should be interpreted in an evolutionary way as society develops – we don’t exactly go around stoning adulterers to death do we?

The Right Rev John Chane of Washington has spoken out against this too:

“I think it’s really very dangerous when someone stands up and says: ‘I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way,'” he said “It’s really very, very dangerous and I think it’s demonic.

He’s right. The people doing this are a blight on their religion, as Iris Robinson is to whatever sect she adheres to. The remainder of the article is telling, because it suggests that, as with Iris Robinson’s and Lillian Ladele’s cases, the mainstream of all societies and their Church leaders, don’t necessarily go along with this naked bigotry. I don’t think Gene Robinson is right in wanting bigots like Peter Akinola at the same table as him – sometimes bigotry is chosen rather than through ignorance – but I’m not as giving and charitable a man as he. And the irony that neither of them is at the Lambeth Conference isn’t lost on me either. Simon Jenkins has a great point:

It might be simplest to conclude that these are the last twitches of the British empire. The mind and the body may be long dead, but the soul has taken some time to catch up. It must be absurd to expect 70 million worshippers worldwide to accept the “discipline and leadership” of an archbishop selected by just 1 million in distant England – especially when each of 38 archbishoprics are referred to as “self-governing”.

Equally absurd is to expect the cultures and belief systems of Polynesians, Chinese, Africans and Americans to harmonise with the fast changing social mores of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant diaspora. How can African bishops commune with gay American ones, whom they regard as in mortal sin?

How can they indeed? Perhaps the Church, particularly in the days where the market determines everything, really does need to fracture and concentrate on what it’s good at, within competing markets for spirituality. Except if it did, Gene Robinson’s ambition for the Church to be a means of changing hearts and minds – to become a tool for human rights, would then be lost. Someone needs to exert some leadership, and find a compromise which can get the Gene Robinsons and Peter Akinolas at least to the same table, to avoid an unprecedented lost opportunity:

The Church of England is confounded by an absurd argument over gender and sexual discrimination, albeit often as code for a growing challenge to the authority of what is seen abroad as a still imperial church. A looser confederation of churches, a commonwealth of faith, ought to be good news.

For the Bible Tells Me So

On Monday I went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall to attend the British premiere of ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’, a film detailing the painful relationship in the US between Christianity and homosexuality, which was followed by a question and answer session with the man who was the main focus of the film – Bishop Gene Robinson. Robinson was for some of the time interviewed by Sir Ian McKellen, co-founder of Stonewall, and it was a remarkable experience, being in the presence of two men who have transformed society around them. Whilst it was fascinating listening to Robinson on his own, having McKellen as a counter-point made it particularly inspiring. Witnessing their joint claim that society could only progress through their joint work – the atheist McKellen lobbying to change laws, directly affecting civil rights, with the religious Robinson working to change hearts and minds, felt like a sea-change in social campaigning was occurring in front of me. It’s a position you never hear organised religion or the non-religious taking – that both sides working together should be fundamentally essential for social change to work. Robinson had a lot more to say (the supporting quotes are from this Guardian article), which that night and in other interviews throughout his stay pretty much concentrated on using the Church as a tool for human rights. Given much of the Church’s current obsession with exclusion, intrusion where it isn’t needed, and its lack of attention to crime and inequality of opportunity in this country, that argument couldn’t have been more timely.

It was time to take back the Bible, he said, from those who used it as a weapon with which to bludgeon the most vulnerable in society.

And now, by the leading of that same Spirit, we are beginning to welcome those who have heretofore been marginalised or excluded altogether: people of colour, women, the physically challenged, and God’s children who happen to be gay.

God and the Church were not the same thing, he reminded us – as humans we get it wrong. He also didn’t think we’d see the day when homophobia was eradicated. He was ultimately comfortable with that however, because (as he put it) those who followed on from us would need our shoulders to stand on for their battles. He was going to Canterbury to remind the Lambeth Conference that ‘we’re here too’, and to remind them of their vows to serve all of their flock and not just some of them.

He thought it crazy that an established Church should be allowed to discriminate in any way at all. That it could meant we should ‘separate civil rights from religious rites’ – ie. distinguish the civil from the religious sphere. In the case of marriage, he advocated its restoration as a universal civil right, which could then be celebrated and blessed within and by the religious community, and not be identified as a religious institution which could then (in this country) be discriminated against (yes, they were in part talking about Lillian Ladele). When the religious people who reject us see that civil rights don’t mean the end of the world, he believed they would likely then follow an extension of the equality agenda of civil rights within their own, religious community.

If the African communion didn’t remain part of the worldwide Anglican communion, we wouldn’t be able to see the consequences of colonialism, racism and Bush’s adventurism. The world needed a model like that, he maintained, particularly with the world getting smaller, and the Anglican communion could offer this model. He wanted opponents like Archbishop Peter Akinola to stay within the Anglican communion for that reason, but also because they were both part of the same Church, Robinson would present for Akinola (and homophobes like him) the possibility by example of changing his worldview. (following quote from the video – transcript here)

We need each other. We need the voices from Africa and Asia and South America to tell those of us in the so called first world the ramifications of our racism, our colonialism and so on. We need each other really for our mutual salvation.

In describing what for him is an interactive God whom he worships, he wanted to make it clear to the audience that he understood Christianity to be something not uniquely locked up in a one-time, immovable, exclusive book of scripture, and used an example from the Bible to illustrate his point. In John’s Gospel Jesus said there was more to learn, but the people of the time couldn’t handle it (as opposed to now).

Jesus says a remarkable thing to his disciples at his last supper with them: “There is more that I would teach you, but you cannot bear it right now. So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.” Could it be that God revealed in Jesus Christ everything possible in a first-century Palestine setting to a ragtag band of fishermen and working men? Could it have been God’s plan all along to reveal more and more of himself and his will as the church grew and matured?

We have intellects, and should use them to make reasonable interpretations (about the Bible), he maintained.

This is the God I know in my life – who loves me, interacts with me, teaches and summons me closer and closer to God’s truth. This God is alive and well and active in the church – not locked up in scripture 2,000 years ago, having said everything that needed to be said, but rather still interacting with us, calling us to love one another as he loves us. It is the brilliance of Anglicanism that we first and foremost read scripture, and then interpret it in light of church tradition and human reason.

It was possible, he believed, to reach people in the ‘moveable middle’ – those who weren’t rejecting of gay people but who weren’t fully accepting, and this pretty much summarised why he’s here. The Anglican Church is fracturing because traditionalists can’t abide the inclusion of women and out gay people, and modernists similarly won’t concede to the rigidity of traditionalists. Just the other day the General Synod backed the appointment of female bishops, flying in the face of traditionalists such as the aforementioned Akinola and their Gafcon. The position towards Robinson however remains acrimonious on both sides. He was barred from the Lambeth Conference, and he says:

“I think a mistake was made in not including me in those conversations. I was the only openly gay voice that might have been at the table. But I will do all I can from the fringe. Miracles happen when people who are divided by something get to know one another.”

McKellen though went deeper:

Just looking at it from the outside, the church thinks it’s got a particular problem with some articles, perhaps not of faith but of, written in the Bible that they refer to. And I can remember the armed forces not that long ago saying they had a particular problem – it was all to do with discipline. Well it’s just been discovered there is no discipline problems when you let gay people into the military. And schools too. Well we’ve got a particular problem.The particular problem they’ve all got and share is homophobia. And having it they root around in the Bible to discover the very few passages that seem to be relevant. But people like the Bishop, like the Quakers, like many people I marched with in Gay Pride last week, gay Christians, gay Jews, gay Muslims are at ease with their faith and their position in society.

Both of them really are looking at the identical issue from completely different angles. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens to them next, both singly and together. I must confess that when Ian said he was so moved by Robinson that he’d nearly converted him to Christianity there and then, I shared a similar feeling. Gene Robinson is an unquestionably great man; at a time when Chuch attendance is at an all time low, Lambeth Palace risks damaging itself yet further by excluding him.

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