The
THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN S.
SPONG, D.D .
December 12, 1997
The Rt. Rev. Peter John Lee
Dear Bishop Peter:
Thank you for your open letter to me responding to
my
correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury
.
Let me first clear up the fact that the Statement
of Koinonia was signed by 73 bishops at the General
Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1994. It is my
understanding that additional bishops have signed that since that time,
but I did not include their names, and at least five of the dioceses in
the United States have adopted that statement as the statement of
their own diocesan convention or synod.
I regret that you found my paper insensitive or offensive based upon
my naming attitudes toward homosexual people to be ignorant.
I would challenge you to rethink that judgment. I have
not said that the people of the Third World are ignorant. I
have said that this attitude toward homosexuality is ignorant.
You say in your letter that you sit on the theological commission of
the CPSA where you have spent many hours weighing the exegetical
and theological complexities and the widely varying scientific and
psychological understandings of homosexuality. You further
say that you have received testimony from homosexual clergy and lay
people, and you have tried to engage the people of your church in a
serious and sensitive debate. You conclude we do not yet
agree, but our debate is not uninformed.
My dear brother, if what the southern hemisphere bishops have put
together in the Kuala Lampur Statement
represents the sum of your exegetical and theological thinking, then I
must tell you that it is uninformed. It is highly prejudiced.
It is without merit. That has nothing to do with race;
that has to do with some objective standards. You suggest in
other places in your letter that the simple reality is that there is not
theological, scientific or ethical consensus, and that the Anglican
Communion needs to seek one sensitively. The Kuala Lampur
Statement assumes that homosexuality is evil, that it is a statement of
human depravity, and it has based its conclusions upon what it regards
as clear theological, biblical, ethical data. That is simply
unworthy. If I were to accept your premise that we are still
trying to determine theological, scientific and ethical consensus, I
would at least insist that the Church be open to those that it might
historically victimize, during the time we wait for the consensus to
develop. That is not what the Kuala Lampur Statement
suggests.
Perhaps the best way for me to help you understand what I am saying
is to ask you to translate homosexuality into a different category.
Within a hundred years ago people were convinced, including
Christian people, that African black human beings were, in fact,
mentally, intellectually and evolutionarily inferior human beings, and
therefore they could justify various systems from slavery to
segregation to apartheid. When the challenge to that mentality
began to take place, those who held that prejudiced position
constantly talked about how the Church was being divided by those
who were disturbing the status quo.
Would you really suggest that the people who agitated for a different
view of reality regarding Afro-American people should have been
silenced by quotations from scripture and tradition that continue to
undergird the prejudiced patterns of the past? I do not believe
so.
What I am saying is that there is a consensus in the scientific world
today that challenges the negativity toward gay and lesbian people
which is articulated so deeply in the Kuala Lampur Statement that it
is embarrassing to the cause of Christ.
I also raise deep questions about your analysis of the American
Church. The American Church obviously has divisions within
it, but so does every church in Christendom, and I would not suggest
to you that they are debilitating divisions, despite what your letter
seems to indicate. A group of very conservative American
bishops joined together with some figures from the Third World and
endorsed the Kuala Lampur Statement. That is not
approaching Lambeth in sensitivity and due humility. It is that
same group that tried to place on trial the assistant bishop of this
diocese for ordaining a gay person to the priesthood. That is not
approaching this issue with sensitivity and due humiliation.
I am not the slightest bit interested in whether my position is superior
or inferior. I am only concerned with whether it is true or not
true.
I also hope you will reread my white paper. Your suggestion
that I am coming to try to dominate Lambeth is simply not so.
My deepest hope is that we will prevent Lambeth from making
a serious mistake and adding to the burden and negativity that gay
and lesbian people have felt from organized Christianity for almost all
of our 2,000 years. If you read my paper again, you will
discover that my purpose is to balance the negativity of the Kuala
Lampur Statement, and to name it for what it is. If you want to
interpret that as saying that the northern hemisphere is
somehow superior to the southern hemisphere, then you are
free to do that, but what I am trying to communicate is that the Kuala
Lampur Statement reflects an appalling ignorance, an appalling use of
Holy Scripture and an appalling prejudice against gay and lesbian
people that is an embarrassment to the Christian faith. I would
be less than honest if I did not bring that to the attention of my
brothers and sisters in Christ. I regard collegiality as an idol
used by prejudiced people to prevent truth from challenging their
prejudices.
Please, if you think that the American Church is in some sort of crisis,
talk with one or two other people besides those you clearly must be
talking to. The same bishops that are today talking about
homosexuality were yesterday condemning the ordination of women,
and the day before yesterday were favoring segregation. No
member on the liberal side of the aisle in the United States has tried
to excommunicate the conservatives. That movement has
totally been from the conservative side toward the liberals.
I wish you well.
Sincerely yours,
[signed]
John S. Spong
Bishop
JSS:lsc
78 Daisy Street
Rosettenville 2197
South Africa
copies to The Primates of the Anglican Communion
Other
interested parties.
Visit Louie Crew's Anglican pages. Send mail to: lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Please sign my guestbook and
view it.
Statistics courtesy of
WebCounter.
This page was created with the help of HTM
Led Pro