wfn.org | Pain, hope, shame and joy: life amongst the bishops

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

By Michael Peers

Pain, hope, shame and joy: life amongst the bishops

CANTERBURY, August 7, 1998 -- For the last three weeks I've been
living among 750 Anglican bishops gathered at the University of
Kent in Canterbury, England, for the Lambeth Conference, an event
that happens only once every ten years. We've spent most of our
time in bible study, prayer and worship, but we've also
considered issues that are important in the life of Canada, and
of the world. 

News reports about the Lambeth Conference have tended to focus on
the controversial resolution regarding human sexuality (about
which more in a moment). Indeed, if you were to read reports in
the English press, they'd have you convinced we spoke of nothing
else! Here are few significant points from the rest of the
agenda. 

Agonizing decisions will increase

Among this newspaper's readers today are some who are confronting
agonizing decisions about medical treatment for loved ones who
are no longer capable of making decisions for themselves. At what
point, if ever, should the goal of medical treatment shift from
prolonging life, to easing the transition from life to death? The
number and complexity of these decisions is likely to increase
radically in the next ten years, spurred on both by the aging of
the population, and by continuing advances in medical technology.

In an area in which we acknowledge there are few easy answers,
Lambeth's contribution has been to offer some ethical guidelines
- signposts, if you will, by which people confronting stark
choices about life and death may be helped to determine their
personal directions and paths. 

As Christians, we affirm as a first principle that life is a gift
of God and has intrinsic sanctity, significance, and worth. The
Lambeth Conference has drawn a distinction between active and
passive responses to issues at the end of life. We believe it is
not consistent with Christian faith to take any action which is
intended to cause the death of another, even one who is suffering
in a painful terminal illness. On the other hand, it may be
consistent with Christian faith to enable someone to die with
dignity by "withholding, withdrawing, declining or terminating
excessive medical treatment." These latter responses are not
viewed as euthanasia in our precise definition.

Admittedly, the distinction is a subtle one, but so are the
decisions with which many are struggling. I hope Lambeth's
exploration of the issues will help those making such choices to
explore their own convictions.

News from home

About the only Canadian news to make it into the English press
over the past few weeks was the historic signing of the treaty
between the Nisga'a people and the governments of British
Columbia and Canada. It came as Lambeth was urging compliance
with the United Nations universal declaration of human rights, in
part as a way of supporting the claims of indigenous peoples. A
portion of the Lambeth report reads:

"In every case indigenous peoples are disproportionately poor,
have little access to a good education and health care, suffer
from higher death rates, and in Australia and the United States
are often prone to alcohol and drug addiction. In every case, the
plight of these people is given a very low profile. They are
ignored and their needs are given low priority. They are not
treated as 'neighbours,' let alone 'brothers or sisters.'

The Anglican Church has been closely involved with the Nisga'a
people, giving modest but unwavering support. Both John Hannen,
the bishop of Caledonia, and I have been formally invested as
Nisga'a chieftains. News of the signing in this context came as a
moment of pride and joy. We share the hope of the Nisga'a and
political leaders, that this signing signals the beginning of
reconciliation. 

Lifting an intolerable burden 

Over the past 20 years, some of the poorest countries in the
world have been hit by a double whammy. Interest rates on their
debts have risen sharply and, at the same time, the prices they
can get for their products have fallen. 

Changing political realities often lend a cruel twist to
international debt. In South Africa, for example, debt repayment
is the second largest expenditure in the government budget (after
education). Ironically, the debt was incurred by the apartheid
regime and its proceeds largely went to paying for the racist
oppression of the people who are now paying it off! The situation
is not unique to South Africa.

Overall, for every dollar we in the developing world send
overseas as aid, eight dollars comes back as interest, according
to the international development organization, Christian Aid. At
the same time, the president of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn,
told the Lambeth Conference that more than 3 billion people now
live on less than $2 a day. The World Bank has conceded the point
that this ballooning debt, by any realistic standard, can never
be repaid - and that it is one of the most serious barriers to
development. 

A coalition of Christian and development groups is urging that
the debt of the poorest countries by canceled by the year 2000.
For Christians, this initiative is bound up with the Biblical
concept of "Jubilee," a time of forgiveness and restoration. For
Canadians generally, forgiving the debt of the poorest countries
would have a modest economic impact on us, while offering a way
of setting off the 21st century on a more even keel, so that the
growing disparity between rich and poor at least has a moment
when the bottom moves slightly closer to the top.

In Canada, as in most countries of the world, we recognize that a
person crushed by debt is unproductive. It is to our advantage
that a means be provided to lift that unequal burden, and so our
laws provide the option of bankruptcy, allowing the individual to
make a fresh start. Similarly, a fresh start is urgently needed
on the international scene. Canadians should support the
international campaign for debt cancellation.

Upholding virtue or promoting hatred?

Just what did Lambeth say about human sexuality? There are two
parts to any message: the actual content, and the way the message
is perceived. In its content, the Lambeth resolution on human
sexuality: 
* "upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in
lifelong union;

* " commits [the bishops] to listen to the experience of
homosexual people. We wish to assure them that they are loved by
God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons,
regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of
Christ;" 
* rejects "homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture,"
but "calls on all our people to minister pastorally and
sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to
condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage
and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;"

* "cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions,
nor the ordination of those involved in such unions."

The perception of this message varies from those who receive it
with joy as a vindication of traditional Christian teaching, and
those who find in it a devastating betrayal of the gospel of
love. 

Canada's 1995 General Synod acted to "affirm the presence and
contributions of gay men and lesbians in the life of the church
and condemn bigotry, violence and hatred directed toward any due
to their sexual orientation." This message obviously contains a
considerably stronger affirmation of gay and lesbian Christians
than the Lambeth text. Even so, much of the content of the
Lambeth statement, strictly speaking, is broadly in accord with
the current policy of the Anglican Church of Canada. (Canada's
policies remain in force since the Lambeth Conference has only
advisory, not legislative authority.)

However, I must disassociate myself from any who perceive this
action as a "victory." Canadians generally will have been
scandalized by some of the reported comments, as were Canadian
bishops here. The debate was marked at times by outright
condemnations of homosexual persons, sometimes phrased in
viciously prejudicial language. This is not consistent with the
gospel of Jesus Christ as I understand it.

I have already joined with many other bishops in writing a
pastoral letter to gay and lesbian Anglicans. It reads, in part,
"We pledge that we will continue to reflect, pray, and work for
your full inclusion in the life of the church.... We call on the
entire Communion to continue (and in many places, begin)
prayerful, respectful conversation on the issue of homosexuality.
We must not stop where this Conference has left off. You, our
brothers and sisters in Christ, deserve a more thorough hearing
than you received over the past three weeks. We will work to make
that so."  

Moment of transformation

The most moving moment came for me yesterday [Thursday] as I
attended a worship service led by the church in Japan, on the
anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

As we entered the service, we received copies of an apology from
the Japanese Church for its complicity in wartime aggression.
With wonderful generosity and hospitality, the Japanese church
had invited an English priest to preach. The Rev. Susan Cole-King
told how her father, then bishop of Singapore, was imprisoned and
tortured by the Japanese military in 1943. The church's apology
had brought her a deep sense of reconciliation. (She also
reminded us Westerners of our own complicity in the devastation
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and urged us to continue working for
the eradication of nuclear weapons.)

For me, the service evoked two intensely personal memories. The
first occurred in my early childhood, in Vancouver, when one of
my playmates and his family abruptly disappeared without notice.
I later came to understand that he had been interned with his
family. Much later, I came to understand why there were always
pieces of Japanese decorative arts in my living room; they were
among the belongings my father, in the name of the government of
Canada, had helped to confiscate. The second memory is more
recent. It concerns my experience, five years ago, of apologising
on behalf of our church for the abuses suffered by native people
in the residential schools we administered. It was a moment of
great pain, but it was the beginning of liberation. 

In the middle of the Japanese service I wept as I relived those
moments. The church is an imperfect reflection of God's reign, a
deeply flawed institution. Far too often, it has brought pain
instead of healing. And yet, as the Japanese Church showed, it is
also a place where we can be open to transformation. When the
gospel reaches into our lives, and challenges us, it can enable
us to face very difficult truths and to both seek - and bestow -
forgiveness. 

Archbishop Michael Peers is the Primate of Canada. The full text
of Lambeth Conference reports and resolutions can be found at
www.lambethconference.org. 

For further information, contact:

   Lambeth Conference Communications
   Canterbury Business School
   University of Kent at Canterbury
   Telephone: 01227 827348/9
   Fax: 01227 828085
   Mobile: 0374 800212

   http://www.lambethconference.org