A muddled Archbishop of Canterbury
Where does the Church of England really stand on gay marriage? That’s a tricky one, but let me try to simplify things by presenting two snapshots of Anglican opinion.
The conservative point of view is that allowing gay weddings would “alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history”. The Coalition must drop its “deeply unwise” plans.
And, in contrast, a more open-minded approach: “The Church is scratching its head and trying to work out where it is on all that, and what to think about it.”
The first statement comes from Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Church’s submission to the Government this month.
And the second comes from Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking to Christian teenagers this week.
Hmm. The Catholic saint Padre Pio was said to have the gift of bilocation, of being in two places at once. Padre Rowan, in contrast, has the gift of biposition, of holding two contradictory opinions at once.
This gift descends on the Archbishop at moments of crisis. Another example: whether, when the C of E ordains women bishops, they should have the same jurisdiction as male ones. “Yes but no,” quoth the Primate of All England. Like his fellow poet Walt Whitman, he reserves the right to contradict himself: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Note, however, that this applies only when Dr Williams is confronted by an issue relating to the Church – i.e., one on which he is expected to show leadership. On questions that are none of his business, he knows exactly where he stands.
. . . He is retiring early, but not early enough. I have no idea who will succeed him, or how the controversies over gay weddings and women bishops will be resolved. But I suspect it will be a very long time before the Church of England allows another hand-wringing intellectual to take the helm.
