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Thoughts on the Windsor Report: What Went Wrong?

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Zahl, Paul F M

The Report of the Lambeth Commission is flawed fundamentally because it refuses to take up the substantial issue that caused its coming into existence: the issue of homosexuality. "Process" statements will not suffice at this juncture in Anglican church history. Theological "conservatives" can take heart from most of the findings of the Report, although it is deficient in equating the New Hampshire consecration with the crossing of diocesan boundaries on the part of "orthodox" bishops and primates. Two further problems with the Report are its ambiguous use of the Bible in relation to an issue on which the Bible is unambiguous; and in its ultimate result, which papers over the cracks.

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There was a headline a few years ago in a college lampoon newspaper that read: "Michael Jackson: What Went Wrong?" It went without saying, something had gone wrong.

I would like to ask the same question concerning the Windsor Report. And this is now after the sixth reading, as Ian Douglas and I recently completed a conversation about the document for Church Publishing. It weighs on me very much, as it seems from my end that the Report went seriously wrong. In this brief essay I would like to outline what I think is missing and unsatisfactory about the Report, then reflect on what it means: what it means for ECUSA, what it means for the Anglican Communion, and what it means for the Anglican project as a whole in the contemporary world.

The Lambeth Commission took a big risk and at the same time ducked one when it decided that its brief did not include the subject of homosexuality in theological perspective. The Report makes that clear in Section A.26 and again in Section B.43: "We repeat that we have not been invited, and are not intending, to comment or make recommendations on the theological and ethical matters concerning the practice of same sex relations and the blessing or ordination or consecration of those who engage in them."

This is the fundamental problem of the Report. The Report fails, by conscious intent, to discuss the issue that brought it to birth. It fails, by deliberate and explicit admission, to give one single word of argument that impinges on the catalytic catastrophe that ignited the worldwide crisis to which the work of the Lambeth Commission was the supposed solution.

It is like the hypothetical failed call in a rector search process. Something basic in the call to the new rector was wrong. Perhaps the bishop was opposed but was afraid to say so. Perhaps a fact was concealed from the vestry that would come out later. Perhaps there was something wrong in the situation from which the new rector was coming. Perhaps members of the search committee had objections that were underreported or were squelched. The implications for what resulted-the tenure of the successful candidate-became enormous. Problems in the call finally scuttled the result.

I feel that is what happened with the Windsor Report. The brief of the Commission was restricted to issues of process, and theologically speaking, to issues of "communion" and therefore ecclesiology. This was too limited a brief. For this reason the answers given by the Report are not enough. They provide nothing like a coherent foundation for discussing the issue as a whole.

The reason for ducking the issue, which is homosexuality, was probably that the Commission supposed the Anglican Communion to be divided on the issue. One persistent, worldly way to avoid division is to avoid discussing what has caused the division. But that is a short-term solution! Ultimately, the whole thing has to be engaged, hammer and tong, root and branch, for anything that is lastingly powerful to be derived. It is like the old illustration of the broken arm that has been poorly set. The arm has to be broken again in order for it to be reset, properly. It is like the wound that has become infected because it was poorly dressed. The dressing has to be removed; the infection cut out, sometimes with excruciating pain; and the cut stitched and re-dressed.

The Commission took the line that its brief included none of this. The Commission claimed that the Communion had already spoken, especially through Lambeth 1998, Resolution 1.10, although it never really acknowledged the arguments for or against that controversial finding. The Commission also envisioned the possibility that the Communion might come to a different "consensus" later on (Section D.134). The whole line of the Commission s approach was to view the issue in terms of a process of containing difference rather than a process of exploring difference. What went wrong? It was a failure in its mandate, a failure in its brief.

Personally, I can only report the exact same phenomenon having taken place in connection with the Inter-Anglican Theology and Doctrine Commission, on which I have served since 2001. I am certain that Archbishop George Carey appointed us with the idea that we would come to some kind of discussion regarding homosexuality in Communion perspective, with special, stated reference to a proposed document written by Maurice Sinclair and Drexel Gomez entitled "Mending the Net." This discussion never happened! Every time I brought up the contentious but utterly central issue of homosexuality in the church, that topic was nixed. It was stated again and again that our brief was solely to examine process. Says who? I asked. Even the Sinclair/Gomez document was put on the shelf repeatedly until the Bishop of Chile simply could no longer stay silent and insisted that we be true to our first stated brief. Very late in the day, and in a thoroughly unthorough manner, the document was briefly, fleetingly discussed.

Thoughts on the Windsor Report: What Went Wrong?

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Zahl, Paul F M

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