“Is It Really Worth the Effort to Continue?”

California Episcopalian John GIbson really lays into a lot of people — not least the Archbishop of Canterbury — in a very thought-provoking but sometimes wrongheaded posting, "Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Anglican Communion of Mine. "   Here are some excerpts:

Do not count me among those who are disappointed or even particularly surprised
by the word out of the Primates’ meeting this past week. Indeed, this
Episcopalian’s belief is that the ECUSA should treat it as an opportunity – an
opportunity to quit pretending that the Anglican Communion can be saved or is
worth saving; an opportunity to begin to form a communion of shared views
amongst Christians who cannot find a happy spiritual home between Roman
authoritarianism and fundamentalist glorification of ignorance.

Let’s
see them on their request that we refrain from attending Anglican Consultative
Council meetings; see them and raise them one. Let’s admit, we and Canterbury
have come to another parting of the ways as we did when we won our revolution
and sent Canterbury packing along with the king.

U.S. participation in what is, after all, little more than an image of 19th
Century British imperialism never made much sense to me. It was their Raj; it
never was ours.

And if they need to continue to make their monarch out to be
someone slightly more important (ostensibly at least) than, say, the Prince of
Monaco; if they have to play at being a world power when their real status has
more in common with, say, Belize, and if the primates and clergy from their
former colonies need an excuse to be treated to tea in the Palace gardens from
time-to-time – head-bobbing and curtseying to the monarch – well, bully for
them! But it isn’t American and it isn’t anything we need to be a part of. …

Although the breach is ostensibly over how Christian churches should treat
homosexual people, at a deeper level it is about something else again – it is
about turning our backs on human learning since the Renaissance; it is about
ignoring the revolution science has brought to human knowledge and it is about
saying “no” to the Enlightenment.   If that’s where the Anglican Communion (and,
God forbid, the ECUSA) wish to go, then please, count me out.

The sheer
desperation of these people, which sometimes approaches hysteria, reflects a
desire to cling to the last acceptable prejudice and an unwillingness to accept
what is patent throughout the Bible – that our understanding changes from
time-to-time. Some of us even call that “continuing revelation.”

*  *  *

On a personal level, I have the gravest difficulty in having any
respect at all for the titular head of the Communion, the singularly
overmatched +Rowan Williams. …  By his sheer pusillanimity over the past several months,
he has succeeded in demonstrating to me only that he has no leadership
qualities whatsoever and is certainly not one to whom I am likely to
look for spiritual guidance.

The development from Belfast [sic] last week presents an opportunity to build anew;
to seek common ground with Christians who share our inclusive view of a
community of faith. We can build a new Episcopal communion with like-minded
clergy and laity in Canada and with more enlightened Anglicans in the UK and
elsewhere in the world.   We can engage in real mission, seeking to spread the
good news of a faith that is spiritually vibrant, intellectually honest, and
very much a part of the Twenty-First Century in which we live.

We can even reach
out to more enlightened minds and hearts among others who had their own breaks
with Canterbury – Congregationalists and Methodists, to name only two. We may
disagree with them on questions of church polity, but surely, that needn’t
dissuade us from agreeing with them about what we agree about.  Far more
promising that, it seems to me, that continuing an empty “dialog” with those
whose ears are stopped and whose minds are closed.

If Belfast is the best thirty
years of talking and listening can produce, is it really worth the effort to
continue?

(Extra paragraphing added.)

Gibson unfairly relegates the Brits to the stature of Belize or Monaco.  That seems just plain dumb; the Brits are definitely still a world power, even if it’s largely because of their special relationship with the United States. 

Gibson is understandably frustrated that ++Rowan hasn’t anathemized the modern-day Viking raiders from the Global South.  But it seems to me that he is taking a profoundly Christian approach to those with whom he personally disagrees — and who reportedly regard him with contempt.  We should applaud and support his patience.

I can certainly relate to Gibson’s comments about some traditionalists seemingly wanting to say "no" to the Enlightenment.   On that one, he hit the bull’s-eye.