The Archbishop and the Schismatics

In a recent editorial, The Jerry Garcia of Canterbury, Mark Tooley discusses the portrayal of Rowan Williams, the embattled Archbishop of Canterbury, in an Atlantic Monthly essay written by Paul Elie. Tooley finds Elie’s enthusiasm about the Archbishop’s struggle to keep the Anglican Communion together dismaying. Tooley points out that Williams’ efforts to bring homosexuals into the Anglican Church without losing conservative Episcopalians have been mainly ineffectual and contradictory. Elie writes in glowing terms about how Williams must suppress his “pro-gay conscience” in order to keep conservative Americans and Africans from leaving, even going so far as to refuse to seat Gary Robinson, the gay Episcopalian bishop, at the last global meeting of bishops.

What I find most interesting about Tooley’s article is his insistence that Rowan Williams, by trying to balance pro-gay and anti-gay factions of the Anglican Communion, has actually misunderstood the main point of the battle. In numbers, most of the Anglican church is no longer American or British, but African and South Asian. Tooley asserts that liberal, mainly white Anglicans do not make up the majority of the church anymore, and therefore Williams, instead of merely trying to keep the two parts together, should actively engage with the dioceses in America that have split off as well as with the African and Asian members of the denomination. I agree that while issues like homosexuality are clearly important, leaders in non-Western countries have other, more pressing concerns. These would include the conflicts with Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV-Aids epidemic and global inequalities.

I think this has relevance for other denominations of Christianity, too, as well as for outside observers. Obviously, majorities are not always right. But a small group of mainly white Americans and other Westerners should not continue to assume that they have the absolute right to decide which direction the church is heading. In this case, the conservative non-Western majority might be better placed to comment and to lead in areas where the church is growing. This could be the only solution for holding the Anglican Communion together.