Bp. Spong's Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion

Bp. Spong's Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion

November 12, 1997

TO: The Primates of the Anglican Communion of the World

Dear friends:

I write to lay before you my deep concern for a significant part of both our communion and the human race; namely, the gay and lesbian population of our world. I am fearful that when we meet at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, we will act out of our long-standing ignorance and fear, instead of out of the Gospel imperative and thus deal one more violent blow to these victims of our traditional prejudice.

My fears have been enhanced by recent statements issued by Lambeth Palace, the General Synod of the Church of England, the incredible and ill-informed diatribe that came this past year from the Archbishop of the Southern Cone (South America) and the much publicized, hostile and threatening Kuala Lumpur statement, signed by certain bishops of Southeast Asia. All of these negative messages were widely disseminated through the press. My concern is that if those are the only voices raised in the public domain, then a distorted picture of the status of this debate will be seen. The facts are, I believe, that these religious voices are significantly out of touch with the knowledge revolution that marks our generation.

It is on that basis that I offer to you the following white paper which is designed to set these issues into a proper context and to challenge the prejudice and ignorance that I believe has been inflicted upon this Communion. I commend this paper to your serious consideration

This comes with every good wish.

Sincerely yours,

John S. Spong
Bishop of Newark
/lc [Lyn Conrad, the bishop's secretary, not 'Louie Crew']
enclosure [The white paper and The Koinonia Statement with names of bishops who have signed.]