THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S SPEECH AT GENERAL SYNOD

When Grandpère saw the printed version of the ABC's speech on the kitchen counter, he asked me what it was. When he had read a little and flipped through the pages, he said, "The speech was that long!" When I nodded, he said, "Well, I wouldn't listen."

I find that I must take breaks in reading the speech because I become exasperated and angry. Reading in fits and starts is not ideal, but I fear that's my way with most of the ABC's speeches and writings.

The ABC puts me off near the beginning of his address by referencing the law which would permit assisted suicide in the same breath as the law which would disallow the church from discriminating against LGTB persons. That's a scare tactic. Plus, the ABC chooses not to speak or write concisely or with clarity. Many words to say very little and obfuscation seem to be his way.

On the equality law in the UK:

One is that we all in fact recognise that communities and organisations have a certain liberty to define what belonging to them might entail; those who belong have to some extent chosen to live with the limits that a community has settled upon, even if they want to argue with those limits or seek to shift them.

The Church of England community has by no means settled upon limits, my dear sir. I hear many different views expressed. Your notion of limits entails a good many partnered gay clergy being allowed to serve in the church only by remaining in the closet, which somehow seems not quite right to me.

Women bishops in the Church of England:

And for both many women in the debate and most if not all traditionalists, there is a strong feeling that the Church overall is not listening to how they are defining for themselves the position they occupy, the standards to which they hold themselves accountable.

Why is the opposition to women bishops not bigotry? Why should bigotry be given a hearing?

The ordination of gay bishops:

The freedom claimed, for example, by the Episcopal Church to ordain a partnered homosexual bishop is, simply as a matter of fact, something that has a devastating impact on the freedom of, say, the Malaysian Christian to proclaim the faith without being cast as an enemy of public morality and risking both credibility and personal safety.

As Ann Fontaine said in the comments at The Lead:

I wonder why he never thinks of gay/lesbian/transgender Anglicans and others in Malaysia who actually suffer death not just threats.

On restraint:

Sometimes that may entail restraint – as I believe it does and should in the context of the Communion – though that restraint is empty and even oppressive if it then refuses to engage with those who have accepted restraint for the sake of fellowship.

Tobias Haller asks a question in the comments to the same post at The Lead:

Why is "restraint" always posed as restraint from action rather than as restraint from reaction?

And then the ABC is onward and upward with the folderol that the Covenant will be the solution to the problems in the Anglican Communion. I don't believe that the Covenant is the solution, but I lean more and more toward the opinion that the Episcopal Church should consider quite seriously whether we can, in good conscience, sign on to the Covenant to keep our place at the table in the Anglican Communion, because I believe our presence seems ever more necessary with each day that passes. If the Episcopal Church is to be "distanced" to the outer ring of the AC, then perhaps it's best that rather than taking the initiative in distancing ourselves, we let the distancing be done to us.

"Three-dimensionality" is the ABC's buzz word, seeing from all sides, which is all well and good so long as "three-dimensionality" does not lead to paralysis.

On Uganda:

And then I think of a telephone conversation in December with the Archbishop of Uganda, discussing what was being done by Ugandan Anglicans in the devastated north of the country – in the rehabilitation of child soldiers and the continuing, intensely demanding work with all victims of trauma in that appalling situation, work that no-one else is doing or is trusted to do; and the ongoing work of care for those with HIV, where the Uganda Church was in the forefront of African responses to that crisis. Three-dimensionality in a church that has been caricatured as passionately homophobic and obsessed with narrow Biblicism.

On the other hand, this from the The Lead:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Church of Uganda associates itself with the concerns expressed in the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009. However, instead of a completely new Bill, the Church recommends a Bill that amends the Penal Code Act (Cap.120) addressing loopholes, in particular:

* protecting the vulnerabilities of the boy child;

* proportionality in sentencing;

* and, ensuring that sexual orientation is excluded as a protected human right.

Well, I'm sure that members of the Ugandan church do good work, but DAMMIT! if we can live with the Ugandan church and their support for draconian laws to punish LGTB persons, they should be able to live with us, although we have an openly gay bishop, or two, or three serving in our church.

Mine is not an exhaustive or measured critique of the speech, but rather a personal response to certain passages in the speech at a time when my emotions run high, and I probably shouldn't be writing. Some might say that my quotes are taken out of context. Read or listen to the entire address and decide for yourself.

For a more measured response see Tobias Haller's post. I'm sure others will follow.