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Theology Wales:
the Church and Homosexuality

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Full contents:

Guest Editor's Introduction
- Rev Jenny Wigley

Presidential Address
- Archbishop Barry Morgan

Same-sex relationships
- Bishop Richard Harries

The freeing of Anglican identities - Rev Dr Lorraine Cavanagh

Facing up to our differences
- Rev Jean Mayland

Same-sex unions
- Rev Dr Will Strange

Homosexuality - the biblical evidence
- Rev Prof DP Davies

Engaging with the scriptures
- Canon Robert Paterson

A view from the pews
- Tim Heywood

The Freeing of Anglican Identities

Rev Dr Lorraine Cavanagh

Lorraine Cavanagh is Anglican Chaplain to Cardiff University, having previously been chaplain to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge whilst completing her PhD in theology. A Londoner, born in 1946 in Chelsea, she is an artist and writer, married to Shaun, a theatre director, and they have two grown up daughters.

This paper is an edited version of a proposal submitted to the Eames Commission and draws on insights and reflections gained during her recent doctoral research. It is in part a response to a paper by Chris Sugden "What is the Anglican Communion for?" which appears on the Anglican Communion Website.

I have written this paper because I believe that a possibility exists for developing new attitudes and ways of thinking about the unity of the Anglican Communion. The difficulties which the Communion is currently experiencing indicate that superficial and shallow notions of unity are inadequate in a dispute in which conflicting loyalties and deep convictions are at stake, and that a new understanding of unity is needed which would help refocus Anglican thinking and so prepare the way for renewed dialogue and for a reconciliation which would release the current deadlock.

During the course of the discussion, I hope to demonstrate that the difficulties which the Communion faces, as it attempts to resolve this conflict, relate to its collective spiritual life and to the way in which its thinking and relationships may not be fully engaged in God at a deep and intuitive level. The discussion therefore aims to discover new and more intuitive ways of thinking about unity, with a view to helping the Commission re-discover a shared meaning for Anglican life, arising from a deeper understanding of the spiritual significance of communion.

1.The Theological and Spiritual Implications of the Conflict

Clause 1 of the Mandate issued to the Commission by the Archbishop of Canterbury, suggests the need for discovering a deeper theological meaning for the common life which Anglicans share. Depth of meaning implies that such an understanding has a spiritual basis which, if ignored, risks causing permanent damage to the life of communion. With this in mind, I now turn to some of the implications for the self understanding of Anglicanism, as it has been affected by the current crisis.

To speak of a common life, and of the meaning which informs it, should not be understood as a covert glossing over of difference but, on the contrary, as the basis for inquiring into new ways of thinking which would subsequently permit the life of communion to be strengthened in a mutuality which is based on trust.

For this to be possible, theological work would need to be undertaken as a spiritual exercise in the context of relationship. In the first place, in a relationship with God, as the primary act denoting what is meant by 'spiritual' and, in the second, where this spirituality informs theological debate and restores broken human relationships.Taken together, these initiatives form the prelude to re-establishing a climate of trust in which to address the issues which dominate this conflict.

1.1 Mutuality - The Relational as encounter

The re-establishing of trust in the fractured life of the Anglican Communion will therefore require a costly process of renewed encounter between separated churches and individuals. Although this does not in itself guarantee unity, the establishment of a climate of trust might initially allow for an understanding of unity which is open to the action of grace and to a transformation of the Communion's common life together in new and surprising ways.

The Virginia Report describes Anglican unity as one of diversities 'held in tension'. The force of the present conflict suggests that this description of communion is too superficial to bear the weight of differences which exist across party and denominational borders. It is also not helped by the fact that many people perceive being 'held together in diversity' as no more than a way of describing an outworn and external structure whose primary function is the maintenance of decline and/or the prevention of total disintegration. What is needed, therefore, is a way of thinking about communion which enables it to deepen its unity in such a way as to permit all its members to grow in the confidence of their fundamental unity in Jesus Christ. Such a unity begins with a reaffirmation of the kind of solidarity which is acquired through free exchange of honour and human affection between people. Being simply 'held together' is now no longer adequate as a model of unity for the life of communion, since it fails to imply the need for a shared common life which is rooted in its inner life of prayer and in the dynamic life of the Spirit. This suggests the need for new ways of thinking about unity which embody strength and the possibility for movement, the movement of God's continuing abiding presence sustaining and transforming the life of communion from within.

A unity which is informed by the inner transforming movement of God's Spirit is a dynamic unity which is sustained and enlivened by grace, so that grace becomes the operative force of Jesus Christ at work transforming the life of communion (1).

In being dynamic, and as the force of God's activity in the Church, grace adds substance and depth to a unity which is based on 'holding in diversity'.The transforming work becomes the 'activity' or 'movement' of God's Spirit which 'holds' or embraces separated individuals in such a way as to enable them to surrender the theological identities which are frequently defined in party or denominational terms. Taken together, the surrender and subsequent embrace might constitute the initial step which needs to be taken towards freeing identities and opening up the current theological impasse with which the Commission is faced (2).

This is not to abstract human identity and self understanding from concrete reality, since the work of transformation needs to be effected in the human life of communion with identities which reflect a person's self understanding, both in relation to God and to other people. Identities are not simply shaped by an individual's self perception. They grow in a sociological and historical context, one which subsequently informs a person's spiritual life. Identities are therefore 'contextual' and need to remain so if the process of exchange is to lead to the sort of mutuality capable of enriching the whole life of communion. For this to be possible, ways need to be found for developing theologies which remain faithful to the historically received teaching of the Church in scripture and tradition but which also derive from a moving or dynamic life experienced in its inner life of communion.

What short-hand terms would you use to describe your own identity? Are these the same labels others would give you?
How has your awareness of your identity changed over the years?

1.2 Mutuality and the collective inner life

This life derives from a deeply contemplative experience of God and is manifested in the life of the Church as the abiding ongoing (dynamic) presence of Jesus Christ in its relationships. The present climate of conflict denies this contemplative dimension and so prevents it affecting the life of communion, with the result that repercussions of the conflict are felt in all areas of the Church's life (3).

Polarising issues, and the slogans and identities with which they have become associated, have led to an identity driven agenda dominating the concerns of separated parties in the Communion. This polarisation of identities would seem to indicate not only a paralysis of the human sociality of communion but also of its spiritual life together, since different 'integrities' must find it increasingly difficult to encounter the same God in the same theological and spiritual 'locality'.

2.A Spiritual basis for the life of communion

It is therefore in this area of spirituality - a shared 'locality' where the same God is encountered - that different integrities might begin to re-encounter one another. If this is the case, the Communion needs to find new ways for re-establishing a spiritual basis for its life together.

2:1 Dynamic and locality

The via media continues to be seen as the hallmark of Anglican identity and this is a helpful interpretation of the spirit of Anglicanism. If we understand the 'middle way' as signifying neither inconclusive compromise, or an unstructured synthesis of 'inclusive' theologies, but a dynamic holding together of difference in the ongoing life of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we begin to see how the concept of locality might help to free Anglicans into a more dynamic unity. It could provide Anglicans with a conceptual 'middle' space in which to forge new friendships across old divisions. It now becomes especially important to retain a sense of the innate 'permeability' of Anglicanism. When brought together, the two concepts of permeability and dynamic allow for the possibility of movement to take place across existing boundaries in the life of communion. Taken together, these terms allow us to think about the 'permeability' of different party or denominational contexts, and of the way in which exchanges of understanding and growth in the mutuality of common affection might occur as a movement of reconciliation across existing boundaries of understanding and interpreting the Christian faith. I would argue, therefore, that the locality created in such exchanges is also a spiritual one, originating in the Communion's life together in Jesus Christ.

From the vantage point of a shared and deeper life in Christ, the 'permeability' of Anglicanism becomes one of its greatest strengths, allowing the two-way flow of ideas and of human affection in the honouring of the other in his or her separate integrity. This constitutes a dynamic of exchange which allows the Communion to continually re-work its self understanding in freeing the identities of its members from the constraints of nondynamic thinking. In other words, dynamic exchange might permit affection for the other to flow from a candid acknowledgment of our shared belonging in Christ.This shared affection, discovered in the natural permeability of communion, opens up new and 'dynamic' ways for separated parties to face their differences with respect to the interpretation of God's will and purpose for the Anglican life of communion. The particular strength of Anglicanism consists, therefore, in the way in which the 'permeability' of Anglicanism allows the dynamic life of God's Spirit to move and to transform what is at present a 'static' situation.

Who are the people with whom you disagree on particular issues but for whom you still have respect/with whom you enjoy a depth of friendship?
On what is the relationship built?

2.2 Participation and Dynamic

Richard Hooker bases his participatory understanding of Church life on a similar premise. For Hooker, God's will and purpose for 'the highest good' is wholly identified with his being, in whom the Church participates in a profoundly Christological and eucharistic sense. His thinking is informed by an understanding of the Church as one which is fully integrated, both in the ongoing dynamic of God's purpose for its highest good and in its relationships. Such an understanding of God, and of the way God works in the life of the Church, derives in turn from an understanding of divine and natural laws as comprising a complementary system whose source and purpose for the highest good of people is in the dynamic nature of God's own being. That is to say, that God's will and purpose are constitutive of his being. The will and purpose of God is dynamic as a continuing activity which occurs within the movement of historical time and events.

A more intuitive approach to Hooker's thinking, as it derives both from participation in the life of Christ in the Eucharist and in a coherent system of laws, prepares Anglicans today for a deeper and more dynamic understanding of the life of the Spirit in the Church. Hooker's integrative thinking provides us with a conceptual basis for thinking in new ways about Church polity, and about the authority which shapes it into unity. A contemplative reading of Richard Hooker allows us to see the Church as an integrated life of relationships which are continually being transformed by the abiding Spirit of Christ's authority who enables its structure to become a supple and enduring framework holding the Communion together at greater depth.

In the theological and political circumstances of his own day, which were closely related and correspond in many ways to our own, Hooker's thinking was informed by the need to retain a sense of the dynamic nature of history and of the way in which contextuality informs the intellectual process. For this reason, he describes the Church in terms which are both historical and participatory, 'that every former part..give(s) strength unto all that followe.' (4).

Retaining a sense of the dynamic and permeable nature of its life together in Christ allows the Communion to discover greater intensity and depth in its experience of unity. Consistent with Richard Hooker's thinking, this might lead to a greater 'collective' (5) discernment of his will and purpose, especially with respect to the polarising issues which currently divide the Church. Allowing for the social permeability of the life of communion to be transparent to God's action prepares the Communion not only for transformation of its understanding of the issues which divide it, but for a corresponding transformation of its understanding of unity, as one which is to be found at the deepest level of human existence in the abiding Spirit of Jesus Christ. It now becomes possible to renew the search for genuine meaning and purpose for the life of Communion in the full expectation that it will be found in new and surprising ways.

3. Disunity and Truth

Allowing the communion to take full advantage of its natural permeability makes it possible for the life of God's Spirit to begin to move it more deeply into the 'truth'.This movement, manifested in a continual rediscovery of a truth which is also unchanging, generates a new kind of unity, one which has deeper and more far-reaching implications than the vague and centralist notions to which Anglicans have become accustomed. This new kind of unity therefore requires a clear spiritual, as well as theological, basis on which to build an enduring Anglican ecclesiology for the future.

The foregoing discussion suggests that permeability, especially as it is associated with freedom of exchange, does not sit comfortably with a definition of the life of communion which ignores the dynamic.The same is true with respect to the historical way in which God has been active in the life of the Church. In both cases, a denial of the dynamic transforming activity of God's will and purpose in the life of communion gives rise to static or non-dynamic definitions of truth. The challenge which permeability poses to new concepts of unity therefore lies in our acceptance or rebuttal of what Chris Sugden, in a paper addressed to the Eames Commission, terms 'sub-optimal ethics'.

3.1 Purity and holiness

As a reflection of puritan ethical thinking which lends itself to excluding (and exclusive) ideas of virtue, the idea of the 'sub-optimal' in relation to the teaching of scripture denies the possibility for deeper and more intuitive collective reading, as well as transformation, in implying a holiness which is, broadly speaking, to be equated with purity and separation (6).

Much has been said by all parties to the current conflict about the implications and effects of applying (or failing to apply) the social and sexual mores of one historical context to the vastly different contexts of today, but the theological implications which this kind of artificial ethics has for the dynamic life of communion merit further consideration. Of primary significance, and in contrast to a dynamic understanding of the life of communion, is the need which some Anglicans experience to define, and thereby enshrine, the concept of truth. Truth defined is permanent and unchanging but it is also 'static', incapable of gestation and growth and likely to wither and die as a result.

What these Anglicans are advocating is a truth which has not been independently 'constructed' .They are understandably concerned about the threats posed by individualism and syncretism to a clear and unequivocal delivery of Anglican teaching. Furthermore, these fears are also justified by the fact that teaching which is unstructured and without intellectual boundaries often fails to 'connect' with those who receive it. This is true both intellectually and at the deeper and more intuitive level of contemplation, when the insights of the contemplative are allowed to become disconnected from those of the intellect. Truth is also received as embedded in history. It is revealed, and its meaning renewed, within the context of the Church's temporal life through the interpretation received in the context of a given tradition. Tradition now becomes the context within which, collectively, we are able to make sense of truth today.

In allowing the present conflict to become 'issue driven', individuals and parties to the present conflict separate the truth from the dynamic of the Spirit, as well as from the history and contextuality of the Church's intellectual and spiritual life with the result that each 'particularity', as a way of understanding truth, is reflected in what are essentially 'static' theologies and ways of thinking about the Church.

The truth is rendered static when 'true' Anglican teaching is appropriated by particular parties who each claim the right to a moral and/or spiritual high ground. As a result of this appropriation of the truth, party and issue based identities become an expression of a 'truth' which has been severed from the meaning which it should acquire in relationship with God and in relationships between persons.

In terms of human relationship, this meaning is often discerned as a glimmer of understanding which 'connects' people at a deeper level in conversation. For the life of communion, as it is resourced from the activity of God's grace in Jesus Christ, we experience such an understanding in the recognition of the integrity or 'truthfulness' of those with whom we disagree. The recognition has its source in God and so witnesses to the transforming work of grace.

These considerations indicate the existence of a spiritual dimension to this conflict, as well as a social one, which the Communion is possibly ignoring. This being the case, the risks to the spiritual life of communion posed by separation from God in relationship and in the doing of theology exist on two fronts:

As individualism (whether expressed in selective and arbitrary readings and interpretations of scripture, or in 'constructed' truth) which attenuates the link between Christian teaching and that of scripture and which denies the possibility for a 'collective' reading of scripture. In both cases, the truth is ultimately appropriated and subsequently used to define the superior identity of one or other party.
As a result of this appropriation of the truth by separated parties, in a weakening of the vital connection which exists between the transformation of the whole Communion into a body which is deeply reconciled in Jesus Christ.

Both cases would seem to indicate the need for a shared spiritual life which is resourced from a continuous reengagement with scripture at a deeper intuitive level.

3.2 Truth and receptivity

Reading scripture together at this deeper level requires a positive 'receiving' of the truth by all parties to the conflict. It contrasts sharply with the exchanging of slogans, a sign of the breakdown of truthful dialogue in the life of the Anglican Communion at present. Being receptive to the truth by reading scripture in the desire to connect with its deepest meaning is not passivity, neither does it lead to 'constructions' of the truth. Instead, it requires a willingness on the part of the whole Communion to take active responsibility for understanding anew the word of God as it is received by those with whom one disagrees . In Laurence Freeman's words, it is a listening which embodies the idea of discipleship: 'To listen is not mere passivity.To listen is to turn towards another, to leave self behind; and that is to love.'(7) In the context of the crisis which currently dominates the life of the Anglican Communion, the listening and receiving process might begin with a de-centring of the collective self into the person of Christ. Focusing on the identity of Jesus is helpful in this respect.

4.Who do you say that I am?

The gospels portray the question of Christ's own self understanding in two ways. The first, in his relationship with the Father and the second, in his understanding of his own identity in relation to those around him (8). In both cases, identity hinges on relationship, with all the risks which relationships entail, rather than on a simple definition of what he represents or believes (9).

In the life of the Anglican Communion and, for that matter, in that of the universal Church, we are who we are by virtue of our relationship with the Father in our being held together in and by Jesus Christ. This is a shared identity which is not exclusively defined by the manner in which individual parties interpret truth.

4.1 Identity and Discipleship

The relationships which Jesus has with those around him also define the fundamental condition of Christian discipleship as one born of a self knowledge which requires self abandonment. This has nothing to do with 'spiritual' detachment from the real world. It is concerned with a deeper engagement with reality, discovered in the neighbour's need to know and to be known by God. In the life of communion, Christian identity is defined in terms of serving discipleship but at the same time the Christian disciple is always open to Christ's question,'Who do you say that I am?'. When a community is open to this question, separated parties begin to recognize the need for Christ in themselves and in the way in which that need exists in one another. In so doing, they discern truth at a deeper level and in a new way. In the context of the present conflict, rediscovering the truth in the need for God which the other experiences, also allows party identities to be released from the kind of individualism which is the result of selective readings of scripture giving rise to a biased understanding of truth. Rediscovering the truth in new ways by allowing our intellectual reading of scripture to be informed by contemplation allows the glimmer of understanding experienced in truthful exchange to reconnect different perceptions of truth with the transforming activity of God's Spirit which is at work in the whole Communion. This forms the basis for lasting and meaningful reconciliation.

4.2 Truth and Reconciliation

Reconciliation, as well as the deepening or renewal of existing friendships, now provides a new foundation on which to establish relationships of trust in which the truth might be discerned in who the other understands Jesus to be.These relationships might later enrich the spirituality of the whole community, returning wisdom and understanding to the heart of its collective and individual life in the Spirit. It might now be possible for the life of the Church as communion to be renewed in relationship and resourced from its inner life, allowing for a recognising of Christ, and of the truth, as being embodied in his question,'Who do you say that I am?' It is a question which, as I have sought to demonstrate, can only be fully answered by embracing the understanding of Jesus which others have. This is worked out in a continued process of growth in self understanding and is linked to the discovery of meaning as it is to be found in the truth perceived by others. I therefore equate meaning with the transforming of belief into an 'understanding' of faith acquired in communion.

How has your own understanding been enriched by "embracing the understanding of Jesus which others have"?
What have you learned by sharing with Christians of other traditions?

The foregoing discussion suggests that this understanding is closely related to the way in which identities are freed into a new and dynamic life of communion as a result of the movement inherent in the reconciliation process. Meaning begins from the same principle of recognition and receptivity which governs the relationship between Jesus and the Father, so that in Christ's relationship with the Father, the rational process is also given meaning in relationship. It is a dynamic relationship involving the will to continually go forward to meet the other in a covenant of exchange which is worked out in dialogue. Separated parties in the Anglican Communion are invited to participate in this relationship at the deepest level and, as a result of this depth and dynamic of participation, to re-discover the meaning and purpose which is defined through different ways of believing the same truth, a believing which defines their shared Christian identity.

There is therefore no reason to limit our understanding of God and of his purpose for the good of the Church to a single answer to the question 'Who do you say that I am?'. This is not to 'construct' a new or different truth. Rather, it requires that the question be heard with the kind of expectations of a particular person which Jesus himself had. In other words, it becomes an intuitive waiting on the truth from the perspective of the other. In this respect, Jesus himself questions a specific and particular person, whose context is coloured by a particular history.The truth which the person speaks is also heard and understood by Jesus within the contextual framework, or narrative, of the speaker. The narrative, or context, is composed of all the events and circumstances in the person's life and will affect the answer which she gives to the question 'Who do you say that I am?'. Parties and groupings in the Anglican Communion also have collective and individual contexts which shape their answers to this question and so place their understanding of who they are in the self understanding of Christ. This, as we have seen, is both a relational and dynamic process, a freeing of identities into his abiding presence and, as a result, a continuing outworking of God's will and purpose in the life of the Communion.

5 Freeing into unity - Some practical suggestions

The foregoing discussion suggests that if unity in communion is to consist of something greater and more enduring than superficial politeness, a way needs to be found whereby identities might be sought anew in God himself, through a genuine experience of what it means to be the Body of Christ. The conclusions I have drawn during the course of this discussion suggest that prior to reaching a long-term agreement about the structural and political future of the Communion as a whole, the fragmenting of the Communion's life together might need to be addressed from the kind of intuitive perspective which begins with rediscovering a commonality of identity in Jesus Christ.This would involve surrendering particular ways of seeing issues which simply reinforce a priori held positions, with a view to rediscovering in relationship a new and fuller truth capable of sustaining the life of communion and of moving it forward.

If the life of communion is to be informed by a renewed experience of the dynamic of God's Spirit at work transforming its life, this transformation will also be felt at parish level, across the existing boundaries of liberal/traditional churchmanship; in a greater commitment to a shared life in the Spirit, leading to a mutually respectful questioning of scripture, and in a genuinely eucharistic life of encounter and reconciliation. As with the global Communion, dynamic encounter with one another from within a shared belonging together with Christ in the Father begins with the identities we take for granted. This suggests that if the dynamic of its life is to be convincing to a world grown cynical and even despairing of Christianity, the Anglican Communion and local Anglican churches need to think and live at a deeper level in the 'ordinariness' of our life together.

1. I owe this association of grace with the dynamic of the Spirit and the ongoing life of communion to Richard Hooker whose participatory understanding of what it means to be both a social and a historical Church informs much of the following discussion.

2. Miroslav Volf describes this process of surrender and embrace as he has experienced it in the aftermath of the Balkan Conflict. See Miroslav Volf Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation Nashville:Abingdon Press (1996) ch.3 especially pp.140ff.

3. In many parishes we experience the effects of a disunity which stems from a loss of confidence in our belonging together in God as a distrust of other churches, in the activism of secular methods employed towards mission and growth and in a task-driven view of ministry dominating parish life at the expense of its inner life of prayer

4. Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker Vols. I & II],W. Speed Hill, (General Ed.); Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977 I.1:2 Hereafter referred to as Laws

5. A contemplative reading of Richard Hooker, allows his principle of participation, as it applies to the life of the Church, to inform the way in which scripture is read.The reading of scripture becomes, in Hooker's terms, deduced 'by collection' and so allows for the whole Church to acquire a deeper understanding of God's purpose at a pre-rational level. See especially Laws I.14:2

6. This is particularly evident when 'optimal' ethics derive implicitly from Levitical purity codes established for sociological (largely hygiene related) as well as theological reasons (the separation of God's chosen people from alien cultures). For a more general anthropological discussion of the distinctions between purity and holiness and their effect on societies see Mary Douglas Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London, Boston, Melbourne:Ark Paperbacks [imprint Routledge, Kegan & Paul plc.], 1984

7. Laurence Freeman 'And Who Do You Say That I am?', Jesus,The Teacher Within , London: Continuum 2000

8. Of especial significance to this discussion is the way in which the identity of Jesus as it depends on his relationship with the Father is also morally defined as doing the Father's will. John 5:30

9. Self descriptive statements (in particular, the 'I am' statements in the St. John's gospel), are often directly connected to people in the context of specific events.