c. 1998 Religion News Service

CANTERBURY, England _ Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark, N.J., the American leading the fight against conservative Anglican bishops seeking to have homosexuality declared a sin and to keep gays from church leadership, concedes he doesn’t have the votes at the church’s Lambeth Conference to enact a gay rights agenda.

The once-a-decade conference of the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion began debating sexuality Wednesday (Aug. 5) after nearly two weeks of tense, behind-the-scenes discussions by gay rights groups and biblical traditionalists. The resolutions adopted on the volatile issue are likely to shape the 60 million-member communion well into the next century.

Spong, one of the church’s most liberal theologians, said he is trying to marshal support for a minority report on the issue.

“You know, a bishop from Uganda stood up today and said homosexuality is like wife beating, child abuse and bestiality,” Spong said after the proceedings late Monday night. “That’s what he said on the first day of the conference, and it’s still the same story. Not a lot of progress there.”

Although the Episcopal Church, the U.S. arm of the Anglican Communion, is considered theologically and socially liberal, in other parts of the world local and national churches remain staunchly conservative and traditionalist.

U.S. conservatives, who have lost their leadership role in their church at home, are counting on bishops from the developing world to send a message to the West at this Lambeth meeting.

“We have developed a church leadership over the last 30 years that has grown increasingly out of touch with the people in the pews,” said the Rev. Todd Wetzel of Episcopalians United, a key conservative group in America.

“The good news is there is a great deal of strength in Christianity abroad at the very time when it appears to be weakening in the West.”

The Africans, who with 224 bishops outnumber the Americans for the first time since the Archbishop of Canterbury started the Lambeth gatherings in 1876, have made their presence known.

“In the African region we prefer and will continue to prefer traditional Christian teachings,” Bishop Zebedee Masereka, a Ugandan who is a member of the 50-member subcommittee studying sexuality, said Tuesday.

While the group studying sexuality has produced some moderate language, the Africans have written their own proposed resolutions that are much more strident.

“This conference … stands on the biblical authority and accepts that homosexuality is a sin which could only be adopted by the church if it wanted to commit evangelical suicide,” the West African Region wrote.

The English, who set protocol at Lambeth, are attempting to broker a behind-the-scenes truce that would fold all resolutions on sexuality into a more neutral statement. Bishops must register to speak during the debate, even outlining generally what their remarks will be, a situation American conservatives and liberals alike have criticized as “stifling.”

In an interview late Monday, Spong said he was trying to marshal support for a minority report, something that would be anathema to the polite British forum.

“I was personally committed not to support a tilt to the left in the hopes there would be no tilt to the right,” said Spong. “I think that went down the tubes today. This sets up a situation where we condemn homophobia and pass a homophobic resolution.”

Conservatives feel that what is at stake is the very life of the communion _ a far-flung collection of churches that originated in England, where it is the state church, and spread to that country’s former colonies.

Bishop Paul Barnett, an Australian and one of the church’s leading conservative voices, said Tuesday he believes the issue of homosexuality could lead to the “unraveling” of the communion.

Conservatives in the United States have threatened to split from the Episcopal Church over the progressive agenda, and a Rwandan bishop has called on the conference to declare Spong and 70 other bishops who signed a statement Spong authored on homosexual rights out of fellowship with the communion.

The practical implications of a Lambeth statement on homosexuality are murky. Lambeth has no power over its “provinces.” It can only suggest or recommend.

But conservative bishops like Barnett and Masereka said they hope the amended resolution, if passed, would give bishops who are ordaining gays or performing same-sex marriages pause.

DEA END CHAMBERS