Bishops Behaving Badly

For Anglican Christians, the fallout from August's Lambeth Conference will rain down for a long time yet. Sister Mary Diocletian, SPP (Sisters of Perpetual Persecution), who was at the conference, reflects on an event in which 'even the winners were losers'.

It's been weeks now, and I'm afraid I still can't find anything about the 1998 Lambeth Conference that was funny.

Not funny in the way that Ship of Fools is funny. The kind of good-hearted humor that stems from the realization that ever since the Fall we've all been cursed with Pythonesque 'silly walks', and we might as well not take ourselves too seriously. Humor that knows that ever since Jesus played that one last practical joke on those Roman cemetery guards, life has been not a tragedy, but a comedy where the good guys win in the end.

THE UNDERDOGS

I'm having trouble finding that humor in Lambeth yet. I can't even find the Hogan's Heroes thread – you know, where the clever underdogs outwit the lovable, bumbling Nazis. To begin with, I don't even know who the underdogs were. There were so many candidates.

Were they the Africans and Asians fleeing persecution, civil war, landmines, crushing international debt, government incompetence, corruption and starvation? Or the North American, Australian, New Zealand and UK white-straight-liberals, who came prepared to be humble and self-effacing (for a change) and walked into a theological propeller blade in full spin – with the hand of their conservative countrymen on the throttle?

Or were they the polite and earnest lesbian and gay Christians who tried to hold off Peter Tatchell's OutRage-ous campaigners with one arm and an African bishop's attempted remake of The Exorcist with the other, while begging for someone, anyone, please, to listen to them?

I know who I think the Nazis were, and they were nothing like Sergeant Schultz, the helmeted Bavarian Blimp who always knew 'nothingkk, NOTHIINGKK!' As Nazis go, these guys were closer to Joseph Goebbels. They were serious, smart, dedicated, hyper-organized, media-savvy operatives of the American Christian Right, who flooded the bishops' mailboxes and doorways with anti-gay propaganda touting 'biblical morality', and coached sympathetic Third World bishops in the art of Western political 'spin'.

Sad thing is, these New Crusaders were painfully sincere in their conviction that Jesus wanted them to go to Lambeth to kill some infidels and queers – or at least bash them badly.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y-!

Some people were apparently under the mistaken impression that Lambeth had something to do with bishops praying together and listening to one another as fellow Christians, despite their cultural differences. After about a week, it became clear that we had all been wrong, and the ecclesial version of ethnic cleansing was the real agenda.

Closer and more objective observers than I have compared the atmosphere at the plenary on sexuality to a gang rape, or one of those Hitler Youth rallies at Nuremberg. You think I'm exaggerating? When was the last time you heard of bishops loudly booing and hissing other bishops for voting with their conscience, and chanting 'V-I-C-T-O-R-Y-!' when they won (come on, be honest – Nicaea)?

If it had been a sitcom, we'd have called it, Bishops Behaving Badly. If the Holy Spirit had dared to show up, it would have been open season on doves.

EVIL STAIN

Sure, other things happened at Lambeth. There were a lot of nice worship services, lots of pageantry, and some silliness. I will never forget the shock on the faces of those jaded journalists when the Ascension Eagles pep squad from London's East End burst into the press conference on Youth Day, waving pom-poms and yelling 'S-P-I-R-I-T-! We've got it!' Maybe that's where the conservative bishops got the idea for their cheer – although shame they didn't wave the pom-poms, but I guess it would have been a mixed message.

We heard a lot of touching stories, stirring witness, thought-provoking ideas. The Lambeth Palace luncheon was pleasant, although hearing Tony Blair hold forth on all that Labour is doing to solve global poverty was a little hard for a Christian stomach to digest along with coulibiac of wild tay salmon. Tea with the Queen, and several thousand others, was something to tell the grandkids about.

But the sexuality resolution, and the sub-Christian politicking that accompanied it, spreads like an evil stain across the memory of Lambeth 1998, despite the Archbishop of Canterbury's stated hope that it wouldn't define the conference. As has been said elsewhere, it wasn't the lobbying so much as the scale of it that bothered. Who knew the Body of Christ would need campaign finance reform?

So you see, there wasn't much to laugh about at Lambeth. Even the winners were losers. It's still Holy Saturday for the Anglican Communion. Thank God we know Sunday's on the way.

For Faith McDonnell's response to this feature, click the 'Bishops II' link below, and for Sister Mary's response to Bishops II, click the 'Bishops III' link...

Bishops II | Bishops III | Archive | Ship of Fools Central