A few of my reflections about the Anglican Communion

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

I care deeply about the Anglican Communion, bound by bonds of
affection, without a curia and without penalties for theological
views currently out of fashion.  

The punitive section of the current draft of the covenant, if ratified, 
would establish a polity that would bite back again and again on other 
issues long after the objections to homosexuality will seem as arcane 
as objections to uncircumcision going into the Council of Jerusalem.
 
 I am proud that even under the fiercest calumny, The Episcopal Church
 has continued joyfully to raise money and do mission in the Communion 
even in dioceses whose bishops excoriate us.
 
I have been blessed to travel extensively in Africa and Asia as an
openly gay Anglican.   Rarely do I encounter the kinds of hostility
that primates and other bishops exhibited at the last two Lambeth 
Conferences.  If given a chance, most welcome an opportunity  to hear 
lbgt witnesses.  At the 8th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 
Harare in 1998, lgbts organized almost 60 padares (break-out groups 
for discussion, not resolutions), and they were the most well attended 
of all padares  at the Assembly.
 
The Anglican Communion Institute and the American Anglican Council
have spent googobs of money stirring up the Communion to
try to win their way as they have not been able to do by persuading
the electorate in the dioceses of TEC or in General Convention.   This
effort has distracted attention from the major needs of many parts of
the Communion.    

For example, the current Archbishop of the Sudan, and his
predecessor, are both very fine Christians with an incredible
burden.  I grieve when I see them use their limited time at the microphone
to attack the Bishop of New Hampshire, with almost no time left to
tell the us about their grave needs at home.   
 
Of course the Sudanese bishops are opposed to homosexuality.   I am
opposed to it too for heterosexuals.   I would be opposed to it even
for homosexuals if homosexuals lived down to the stereotypes most of
the naysayers in the Anglican Communion  hold about us -- stereotypes easy 
to sustain in a culture in which open committed same-sex relationships
prompt long prison sentences, or under sharia, even death.
 
The views of the bishops of the Sudan are not very different from
those of GC in 1979.   A few of them even know better, but behave in
ways that ACI and the AAC have shown to be politically expedient for
them.   Bishop Deng Bul's public pronouncements at Lambeth in no way
reflect the quality of the relationships that he has maintained with
faithful gay leaders working with him in companion relationships with
several dioceses.
 
Louie
 
Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018
973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary