22 September 2015 A.D. Anglican Primatial Meeting (Jan 2016)?—Wages of Spin & Death of Truth?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFgqnisSsk
The
wages of spin: death of truth?
22 September 2015 A.D. Anglican
Primatial Meeting (Jan 2016)?—Wages of Spin & Death of Truth?
Symes, Andrew.
“The wages of spin: death of truth?” Anglican
Mainstream. 22 Sept 2015. http://anglicanmainstream.org/the-wages-of-spin-death-of-truth/.
Accessed 22 Sept 2015.
The
wages of spin: death of truth?
Sep 22, 2015 by Andrew Symes
By Andrew Symes,
Anglican Mainstream.
Revisionist leaders talk a lot about their desire
for unity in the Church. But more often than not, the only unity they are
interested in is with the world, joining with the briefings of the secular
culture against orthodox Christianity.
Here is what happened on Thursday, on the BBC Radio
4 ‘Today’ programme, where the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, and myself
were in separate studios to discuss Justin Welby’s recent invitation to the
Primates of the Anglican Communion to attend a meeting in January. Bishop
Walker began with a downplaying of the sexuality question, saying that there were
many other issues of shared interest which would continue a sense of unity:
“…they will be discussing religiously
motivated violence, the environment, protection of children…[on my recent visit
to Pakistan] Christians were far less interested in my views on same sex
relationships than that I was prepared to be with them and…pray with them.”
He then spoke of how the Communion can hold together
with “strong autonomy for each national church, but a sense of mutual affection
and…shared history”.
My response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
invitation was to show appreciation for his initiative in getting people round
the table who have been estranged, but I questioned the diagnosis of the
problem, in particular the suggestion in the Statement from Lambeth that the
differences are cultural when in fact they are theological; serious differences
about what the Christian faith is.
The interviewer, following the line of questioning
provided by the Radio 4 researchers, then asked how the Communion can hold
together when the American branch supports gay marriage, while Ugandan Bishops
support the death penalty for homosexuality. I said immediately that this was
completely false. The Ugandan church holds to the historic biblical teaching on
sex and marriage, but does not support the death penalty – and in fact has
worked hard for protection of homosexuals and other minorities in Africa from
injustice.
At this point the Bishop of Manchester, only a
couple of minutes before telling us all how sexuality was a minor issue in the
overall unity of the Anglican Communion, jumped in to say “oh but the Ugandans
do support criminalization of homosexuality”. Er, no. We need to get our facts
right. [A statement from the Church of Uganda from January 2014 can be found here and further background can be found here .]
The interviewer then said that there were obviously
major differences. How could the splits be healed? Bishop Walker assured her
and the listeners that the “bonds of affection” would continue.
Now apart from tips as to how I can improve my own
media performance, is there anything we can extrapolate from this encounter?
Firstly, a clearer understanding of the methods of
spin that are being used. The “Ugandan Bishops support the death penalty for
gay people” line was used in an article by Andrew Brown in the Guardian the day
before; it was picked up and repeated by Caroline Wyatt the BBC religion
correspondent in her TV report, and then used by the interviewer Mishal Husain
in the morning. Wyatt and Brown have apologized and amended their reports, but
the damage has been done. A big lie has been asserted as truth by authoritative
sources, and has reached millions of people. Repeat the lie; it will stick in
people’s minds. George Orwell could not have thought up a better example.
Secondly, vilifying the Ugandan church in this way,
and setting it against the pro gay marriage stance of the North American
Episcopal Church, is part of a consistent and clear narrative emerging in the
public square: there are two types of religion, good and bad. In the same way
that there are ‘moderate’ Muslims and jihadists, so there are reasonable,
liberal Christians, and horrible conservative anti-gay ones. Any orthodox
believer who has a conservative view on sexuality, however nuanced and
compassionately expressed, is now, by implication and because of the lie about
the death penalty in Uganda, confirmed in an association in many peoples’ minds
with murderous bigotry and intolerance. It seems a remarkable coincidence that
in the same week that the BBC and the Guardian were putting out these memes:
“conservative Anglicans…GAFCON…kill gay people”, reports were coming through
that our Government is seriously considering legislation which will require religious leaders to register
for government approval and show that their views are not “extremist”.
A new message is being hinted at to orthodox
Christians by the secular state: get with the programme, or we will treat you as extremists.
Thirdly, the episode is an example of revisionist
episcopal hypocrisy. David Walker (whose views are well known) claimed on one hand that
the “gay” issue was not going to split the church, and that unity in the
Anglican Communion was his priority. But then he joined in an attack on the
Church of Uganda using false information. If his aim is unity, this will surely
have the opposite effect – unless of course he thinks he can bully African
churches into following his revisionist views, and creating ‘unity’ that way?
Rather than discuss the theological issues behind the fracture in the
Communion, the Bishop of Manchester chose to use the radio interview to solicit
support from the secular liberal audience for his own brand of Christianity, by
demonizing African Anglicans and so further hardening the divisions in the
Communion. To what extent does this reflect his own view, or part of a more
organized policy?
We are seeing a combination of spin, intimidation
and hypocrisy as revisionist church leaders join with the secular media in
creating distance between (in their narrative) ‘good religion’ of liberal
Western Anglicanism, and the ‘bad religion’ of the orthodox version in the
developing world. In North America the faithful confessing Anglicans have faced
this, taking a public, costly stand, articulating the Bible’s clear teaching
about sex, marriage and what it means to be human as part of a fully-orbed
presentation of the counter cultural Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have not been
ashamed of association with African Christian leaders, warmly welcoming close
fellowship and even oversight from them. The Archbishop of Canterbury needs to
show at the January meeting that he rejects the revisionist tactics of the
BBC/Guardian/Bishop of Manchester (that is, if the GAFCON Primates accept the
invitation). Otherwise English evangelical Anglicans and orthodox
anglo-Catholics will need to be moving ahead organizationally along the same
lines as ACNA.
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