A Letter to the Lambeth Bishops

from Mark

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To the Lambeth Fathers,

I write this letter to you after deliberating long and hard about how I could respond to the resolutions, with reference to human sexuality, that you decided were to reflect your collegial understanding on these matters last summer at the Lambeth Conference. On one level, there is not really anything to respond to in that nothing on a practical or concrete level has changed, especially in the provinces of Canterbury and York, because of these resolutions. However, it is clear that your statements have seriously raised a number of issues for those of us who have sought to live out the demands of the Gospel while at the same time knowing that we are gay. This is particularly true for those of us who are ordained or, like me, have been considering exploring our vocation in the coming months or years. At the outset, I would like to state that I am not seeking to attack or berate you for your discussions at Lambeth but am merely seeking to offer my thoughts and ideas as part of the dialogue I believe that the Anglican Church needs to have on this issue in the coming months and years.

The first question that I would like to pose to you is what you now suggest that those of who us who believe that God has called us to service in His Church do as a result of your resolutions? Are we being asked to no longer seek ordination as a result of our sexual orientation? If so, what is it about the fact that we are attracted to members of our same-sex that disqualifies us from serving God through the priesthood? Naturally, my critics would say that biblically and theologically that our lifestyles are at odds with orthodox teaching but how does this relate to experience and to reason or, as Anglicans, are we now declaring that these no longer are part of the triad that we have prized for so long? In fact, it is obvious that on an experiential level, gay and lesbian priests have been fully able to live out their calling and have done so with great sacrifice and service in dioceses throughout this land under the blessing of bishops of varying traditions. It is ironic that it was many of these bishops in one foul swoop on a sunny day last summer who cast aside this work for the sake of collegiality and political expediency.

Yet, what really upsets me about your vote is the fact that it has closed down so much discussion that needs to take place in order to come to a greater understanding of the nature of the priesthood and why so many gay people have discovered who they are in living out this particular way of being in the world? Yes, I know it is surprising and at odds with your discussions but it is evident that in being who they fully are before God in His service as priests that many gay and lesbian men and women have come to be at home in themselves. From such a position of mental, spiritual and sexual integration, they have, furthermore, being able to realise that this curse of homosexuality is redeemable and that it can become a gift and a channel of grace to the world. This journey into personhood, however, cannot be heard and its discoveries, on the whole, remain within the confines of a small group of people who lives could be models of the ‘liminality’ that scholars such as Ken Leech argue are the essential marks of priesthood, if only they could speak with honesty and without fear.

Surprisingly, in light of the above comments, much of my sadness with regards to your discussions at Lambeth do not centre around their implications for the Church and the ordained ministry but, more importantly, are to do with the gay community. As I sat on Compton Street yesterday and looked at the lives of gay men and women as they were played out before me, I wondered what the Church should be saying to these men and women. Even through the shortest of observations, it should be challenging the narcissistic and hedonistic nature of much of the scene and gay life in general. A loud voice needs to be heard within the gay community declaring that wholeness and well being cannot ultimately be found in the next session at the gym or the latest piece of clothing or the next ‘pull’ whether they were found in a gay bar, club, backroom or sauna. The resulting instability, loneliness and psychological damage that are produced from such lifestyles demands compassionate but godly criticism and analysis.

Sadly, the Church would never be heard if it did this for it has lost any opportunity to speak into the lives of the gay community through decisions and discussions like the ones that took place at Lambeth. The powerful message that integration of the whole person through the redemptive live of Christ will not reach the walls of the gay villages of London, Manchester and Brighton, walls that encapsulate so much joy but also encompass so much unredeemed pain, fear and brokenness. No wonder that I am so unhappy because it was through the emphasis on the doctrine of the ‘incarnation’ and the Anglican Church’s claim to be truly catholic that I first realised this was the place where I belonged. Yet, I fear that we are in danger of destroying this heritage since there is a community of people in this land who believe that we think that they are so vile that they are beyond our conception of redemption and whose lives we cannot offer to God nor touch with His grace.

In conclusion, I hope that you have been willing to listen to my questions since I believe that it is not until that they are answered that your statements of the summer past can have any credibility and force even though I cannot imagine that I will even then be able to agree with them. In closing, though, I do want to know what advice you would give to people such as me who are now faced with the fact that we do not fit in either of the two communities who we owe much of our allegiance to but who we are at odds with, to some extent, because of the paradoxical nature of our commitment. To placate the Christian community, which we long to serve are you suggesting that we continue existing in a world of make believe and half-truth where we dodge the questions that our selectors know the answers often to already? In doing this, are we to compromise our vocation at the outset by not being ourselves with the people who are seeking to understand ‘who’, in the fullest sense of the word, we are in order that we might give this gift of personhood to the Church? Furthermore, do you want us to perpetuate the lifestyle of so many priests who have gone before and become ‘split’ individuals propping up a gay bar and/or a bedpost on Saturday evening before celebrating the sacrament on a Sunday morning? What damage such a lifestyle has done to so many as they have sought to keep these two worlds apart and, in doing so, have often become bitter and deeply resentful as their priestly vocation of reconciliation can have no effect within important areas of their own lives.

Well, it would be good to get a response to these questions but I do not think that it will come. Instead, there will be merely retreat and a drawing up of the draw-bridge for this is a place of safety and will enable you to escape the pain that this conflict produces within many you. Yes, it is clear that this is about your pain as well as ours since I fear that in pushing us away, you are saying something very clear about your understanding of the Christian life, a life that you too will not be able to incarnate. Seemingly, if I am understanding the situation properly, this understanding of the Christian life, as reflected in the Lambeth gathering, is a life where variety and difference are not allowed to exist and where the doubts, fears and questions that plague and shape the human mind are not be heard, nor offered as a gift to the world. Yet, how many of us, whether straight or gay, can live up to such ideals without them overwhelming us and do we want to anyway? More importantly, are such ideals found in the life of the person of Jesus of Nazareth whose life and teaching is summed up in the crucible of pain, hurt, doubt, paradox and fear that is symbolised in the Cross? I guess it is to this Cross that I now have to look in deciding whether the ultimate sign of my calling to the priesthood will be a sacrificing of it and all that it means to me as I choose not to seek ordination in God’s Church or whether I should continue.

The answer to such questions, I know, lie in the future but I believe that in writing this letter that I have got a little closer to the truth and it is in this spirit of truth that I offer all that I have written to you in love and friendship.

Yours in Christ,

Mark Kenny

Copyright © Mark Kenny 1999