When diversity trumps truth, the Church has nothing to offer the poor.
By Chris Sugden, Evangelicals Now
Anglicans on both sides of the homosexuality debate have concluded that the crisis is now behind us. The key decisions have been made both by TEC and orthodox Anglicans in the Global Communion. TEC has clearly walked apart. The leader of the LGCM in the UK said that a schism should be now recognised.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has sent a Pentecost letter to the churches addressing the situation. His minimalist response is little more than wordplay.
He uses the term diversity to describe a range of views on a number of matters, as though they were all examples of a positive diversity to be embraced: diversity of tongues and languages in which the gospel is proclaimed, diversity of gifting and service, human diversity, societies are diverse, diverse peoples of the world, diversity of views on infant baptism, a coherent Anglican identity does not mean one with no diversity, which of course includes a diversity of views and practice on sexuality.
The Archbishop frames the current disputes as diversity, which become divisions because of misunderstandings and failures of communication. He thus reinterprets clear disobedience by TEC to the will of God as set forth in Scripture and recognised by the Church and reduces it to mis-communicated diversity.
The problem as he diagnoses it, is that some provinces, not only TEC, have formally adopted policies that breach the moratoria on same-sex consecrations and on crossing provincial boundaries to address this. All such provinces therefore will have their representatives on ecumenical dialogues reduced to consultant status. To go by what happened at the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham in 2005 when TEC representatives were present only as observers, this will mean no difference whatsoever: another play on words.
What is needed is better communication through “encounters that take place in a completely different atmosphere from the official meetings of the Communion’s representative bodies” – in other words in backrooms where there is no correct procedure to appeal to but all decisions are left solely in the hands of the powerful.
The Archbishop acknowledges limits to diversity, “ when some part of that fellowship speaks in ways that others find hard to recognise and that point in a significantly different direction ”. This is too strong for Presiding Bishop Schori’s understanding of diversity. In her reply, she characterises Archbishop Rowan’s response as colonial imposition of a singular understanding.
But diversity, indeed sharp division over doctrine and practice does not really matter for Archbishop Williams when people act together for the care of God’s poor and vulnerable.
The Archbishop has been poorly advised here. His view suggests that poor people do not care about truth or about relating to God in trust and prayer. When a slum community of Muslims was forcibly removed and literally dumped on the doorstep of a church in India, the first thing they asked for was for a place of worship.
TEC sees that care as promoting the Millennium Development Goals. If so, why compete with Oxfam?
Fundamental to poverty is how people see themselves. Outcastes in India are taught that they deservedly suffer poverty because of their or their forbears’ sin. This removes motivation to change their poverty which is willed by God. People need to see themselves as created and loved by God, entrusted by him with resources and accountable to him for their use; offered in Christ a status as his sons and daughters, forgiven for their sin and empowered by his Spirit to fulfil God’s purposes for them.
The World Bank’s survey of 40,000 poor people found that the organisation that poor people trust most after their own community groups is the church. Why? Not because of the money or help the church gives, but because through the church they come into contact with the love and power of God in Christ.
Many development projects seek to engage “ the community”. These are usually groups recruited specifically for the development project which disperse once the funding finishes. The churches remain.
The church’s doctrine of the love and power of God, its discipline in sanctifying marriage and family has a powerful effect in poor communities. When the church hides or denies the truth with which it has been entrusted, its development programmes are soon taken over by secularists and others.
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