The Possibility of Difference

So the hoo-ha over the Lambeth Calls continues.  Bishop after bishop, province after province have weighed in following the publication of last week’s document. My personal favourite came from the Church in Wales . At the other end of the response spectrum, Twitter has been…itself: Self-righteous and angry.  At times it has felt like we’ve all engaged in our favourite sport of collective victimhood.  Which is really unnecessary. There’s enough actual pain in the world right now without adding to it.  I mean - I’m sorry - this was a f**k up, but we do kind of reveal who we are by our response to a f**k up.  On Monday, a communique was issued : people complained that there would be two ways of responding to the calls, and neither of them involved dissent (I agree & add my name to this call; or, I think this call needs more discerning). So a third way has been added (I do not add my name to this call).  And the drafting team (or some of them) are taking an...

So the internet (read: the Anglican corner of the internet, and specifically the inclusive part of the Anglican corner of the internet) has blown up as just days ahead of this year’s Lambeth Conference, a series of ‘Calls’ have been published - including a Call concerning ‘Human Dignity’ which resurrects the Lambeth 1998 resolution 1.10. This resolution, just in case you haven’t been keeping up, is the one that makes same sex marriage a big no-no for Anglicans, and states quite boldly that marriage is hetero or nothing.  It’s a resolution that has been used for a quarter of a century to browbeat us LGBTQ+ people, and the very idea that it gets such a prominent resurrection now feels like betrayal. What’s the point of discussion, what’s the point of LLF, what’s the point of anything if the people who get to set agendas just throw this at us - and with one line condemn us to another quarter century of being told we’re not faithful, we’re not Anglican, we’re not Christian, we’re not ...