A Lay-person’s Response to the Kigali Commitment
Preface
At the outset of this open letter I want to make clear that this response is not written as a repudiation of GAFCON but as a concerned lay-person within one of its affiliated congregations. While the tone of the response may be direct, it is out of concern for the future health and stability of the organization and a desire to see it avoid taking theologically untenable positions based on over-reactions to current cultural and political trends. Because, while there is much in this declaration that is commendable, forward-looking, and formative, there are also passages that are deeply concerning and show that the foundations of GAFCON are being laid on the unstable sands of purpose-built theology, atomistic interpretations of Scripture, and a fear of “the other” that sets the stage for de-humanizing attitudes and actions.
The Kigali Commitment uses novel, purpose-built theology that presupposes certain theological realities in order make its point.
The portions of the Kigali Commitment dedicated to its split from the Church of England seem to be singularly focused on one issue du jour, human sexuality, and the authors build their theological case from this narrow vantage point. They start by making serious allegations against the Church of England but then then glosses over them as they progress through the rest of the argument. In this process they elevate the issues of human sexuality to the level of core doctrine in order to preclude further debate.
“We call upon those provinces diocese and leaders who have departed from biblical orthodoxy to repent of their failure to uphold the Bibles teaching. This includes matters such as human sexuality and marriage, the uniqueness and divinity of Christ, his bodily resurrection, his promised return the summons to faith and repentance and the final judgment.”
This is a list of unlike things. The items that follow after the word marriage are taken from the creed, and if the Church of England has changed its official position on any of them, it would be of such import that it should overshadow, by orders of magnitude, the other items in the list. This raises the question as to why these alleged departures from the faith are not the main crux of the argument for the separation. If a repudiation of these core doctrines has indeed been made by the Church of England this would be the proper place to enumerate them, but this is not done. These are serious accusations, yet they are mentioned only in passing and always in the context of human sexuality. This leads us to the conclusion that the authors believe that matters of human sexuality can and ought to be conflated with the core doctrines of the Church. It presupposes the validity of this position without providing any argument as to why these issues should be elevated to this status.
People within the catholic Church should be able to have good faith disagreements about what scripture says about human sexuality, particularly what is being referenced linguistically and culturally when Paul condemns homosexuality. But these debates can no longer happen under this new, expanded theology. GAFCON’s expectations around a person’s genital comportment are now raised to the unquestionable status of core church doctrine which is the equivalent of a Papal bull. This is the resolution of issues by fiat, which is a dangerous precedent to set at this early stage in our communion’s development.
The Kigali Commitment fails to follow its own precepts by using atomistic interpretations of Scripture.
“The Bible is God’s Word written, breathed out by God as it was written by his faithful messengers (2 Timothy 3:16). It carries God’s own authority, is its own interpreter, and it does not need to be supplemented, nor can it ever be overturned by human wisdom.”
This is all well and good, but the statement “is its own interpreter” subsequently precludes the authors from plucking individual verses or passages from their larger context and using them as de facto proof in their argument. The authors have committed themselves to a holistic interpretation of Scripture, meaning that they must keep the proper balance of authority in mind when claiming to interpret how a piece of Scripture should be applied to our communal lives. Yet, this is not the case throughout the document.
The four Gospels are the lodestone of scripture. All other passages of the Bible must orient themselves to the words, actions, and theology demonstrated by God Himself as He lived among us. We cannot properly interpret or understand Scriptures any other way. Just as Christ’s teachings ameliorate and make superfluous the barbarisms of the Old Testament, they also put checks on some New Testament writer’s tendencies to expel people from the Kingdom of God when trying to parse the nuances of communal life.
“However, we reject the claim that two contradictory positions can both be valid in matters affecting salvation. We cannot ‘walk together’ in good disagreement, with those who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the Saints.’”
In this passage in particular, the authors would have been better served by keeping in mind that Christ taught time and again that it is not our job to be the gatekeepers of heaven. None of us have the purity of motive, the intellectual capacity, or the spiritual insight to perform such a task. The role of judge between the wheat and the tares is one that God reserves strictly for Himself. The truth is that we Christians will be thoroughly scandalized by who is and is not in Heaven.
We can have honest debates about human sexuality and disagree about various interpretations of words and their cultural connotations, but we cannot add a human sexuality clause as a precondition to salvation. We must understand that there are gay people, known and unknown, active and celibate, who lovingly and willingly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that God has raised Him from the dead.
Once again, we see that the authors elevate human sexuality to a creedal position and all but outright state that gay people cannot be saved. This is a failure follow their own precepts and use Scripture to interpret Scripture. This failure is highlighted by the fact that it puts the Church in the potentially absurd position of saying that celibate gay individuals are participants in salvation and the family of God but that they can somehow lose this status when they are no longer celibate.
The Kigali Commitment flirts with language that lays the groundwork for de-humanizing those who are in disagreement.
“All of which require that we do not walk in Christian fellowship with those in darkness.”
This is the phrase that is the most troubling. This is the beginning of de-humanizing language. Those who are in disagreement are now no longer part of the covenantal family, but they are separated from us in status and power. In our collective Christian nomenclature, those who are “in darkness” are those without the light of Christ, strangers to His saving grace. The term “in darkness” also carries with it the connotation that they are inscrutable and dangerous. This is the language of fear, the language of alienation that can justify mischaracterization and mistreatment.
I do not know if the authors consciously intended all of this when they chose these words, but it is indicative of a reactionary desire for a clear line of separation that precludes any further efforts of communication and attempts at understanding. The Kigali Commitment may have the overall tone of a heroic declaration of independence from the mother Church, but all of its hopeful language cannot cover the whiff of de-humanizing fear of “the other” that pervades much of the document.
Conclusion
The fact that the issue around what people do with their genitals has been been given equal status with the core Church doctrine of salvation is deeply concerning. It gives strong credence to the view that our branch of the Anglican Church has been captured by the culture wars and is being lead in directions that are very difficult to step back from. It establishes a pattern of conflict resolution that we will be fated to repeat often since there are always new ways to fracture the church, new issues that prove that your group is more correct, and that others are no longer to be trusted or communicated with.
This impulse for purity has a powerful pull on the human will, but it is an illusory goal. No matter where you believe you stand in your true expression of correct, biblical beliefs there is always a person or group with a legitimate reason to deny you your claim. There is always a purer expression to be sought after, a more stringent interpretation, a more valid reason to break with the rest of the community.
I was reared in this system. I grew up believing that anyone who drank alcohol, watched movies, or went to a church lead by priests and bishops could not be “a born-again believer.” I was taught that there were very few Christians left in the world and that I was lucky enough to be among the chosen few who were pure enough and correct enough to make it into heaven.
While it is important to be able to know and understand our beliefs, morals, and ethics relative to those around us, the problem arises when we become convinced that our place on the continuum is the only legitimate expression of those beliefs, morals, and ethics and are encouraged to view others who hold different views as un-pure, un-desirable and un-saved. When this happens, we are broken into self-referential groups, pushed into tribalism, and the progression of the Gospel is weakened and discredited by our own hands.
I do not want this for my fellow Anglicans or for any child of God. I hope this letter is taken in the spirit it was written, as a warning from someone who has lived in small, fearful Christian communities and knows the corrosive nature of a single-minded pursuit of purity and surety and knows exactly how impossibly unattainable they are. If we are to be a repentant church, I can think of no better place to start than here. The grace of God be with you all.
The views that a person, organization or church can take on matters of human sexuality run a wide gamut and it is not the goal of this letter to endorse one particular view over the others. The goal of this letter is to point out problems in the way the Kagali Commitment attempts to solve this complex issue which I believe does damage to the Anglican Communion’s theology, comportment, and future cohesion. I do not expect that everyone who reads this letter will be in full agreement. If this is you, thank you for reading this far. As this is an open letter to the Church, I encouraged you to share it with anyone you think may be interested. I ask only that you retain the information below.
- Daniel Vice, May 3, 2023
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