Archbishop of Canterbury Appeases Homophobes Again

When Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury there was a presumption that because he was a more thoughtful, seemingly more liberal man than his predecessor, the Church of England might begin to liberalise from its more recent mysoginistic and homophobic past. Yet at every turn Williams has sought for expediency’s sake to appease the extremists in his camp, so scared is he of leading the Church towards schism. And yet again, with the election of out lesbian bishop Mary Glasspool by the Episcopal Church in the United States, Williams is at it again:

“The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

“The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees.

“That decision will have very important implications.

“The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.”

It’s breathtakingly cynical. At a time when the Anglican Church in Uganda is colluding in the systematic criminalisation of all gay people, the Archbishop is more concerned with a lesbian becoming bishop in America than sending out a message that homophobia is wrong. He hasn’t made a public condemnation of the path Uganda is on at all – instead he seems more concerned with shoring up Christianity’s dwindling role in modern society, saying:

“The trouble with a lot of Government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it’s an eccentricity, it’s practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities.

“The effect is to de-normalise faith, to intensify the perception that faith is not part of our bloodstream. And, you know, in great swaths of the country that’s how it is.”

And yet faith is a problem, he himself uses it justify bigotry, by implying that the primacy of faith is more important than the rational world of human rights. Faith is not part of our bloodstream, it’s an outmoded habit, but it could quite effectively be brought into the mainstream if the organised religions underpinning it had the guts to stand up against bigotry and for human rights. Although cases do exist where this actually happens (I’m thinking the response by the leaders of all Christian Churches in Liverpool to the murder of Michael Causer and the attack on James Parkes), Anglicanism’s leadership still cravenly panders to the worst bigotry rather than displaying any principles at all. As long as that persists, faith will remain a problem.

UPDATE: Williams has now attacked the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, calling it ‘shockingly severe’.