“WE WON”: GAY TRIUMPHALISM IN THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION, PART ONE
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Introduction
To be a gay Anglican man—and indeed, to be a lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer Anglican—is to be caught in a maelstrom of colonialism and homophobia, with but a few places of refuge which offer an at times shaky form of LGBTQ inclusion. Recent incidents illustrate this, such as the invitation of a homophobic preacher to the pulpit at The Episcopal Church’s National Cathedral and the conflict between the Anglican Church of North America, the Archbishop of the Church of Nigeria, and the Archbishop of Canterbury regarding how lesbian, gay, and bisexual Christians should refer to themselves. The collision of homophobia and colonialism throughout much of the Communion renders obsolete any sense of triumph one might take from within the inclusive churches of the Communion. However, insights from queer theory and queer theology can help us question, critique, and unravel this pattern and perhaps free us to form new patterns of relation and belonging in the Anglican Communion.
“We Won”
We might approach tangled mess of Anglican homophobia and colonialism from within one of the most LGBTQ-inclusive branches of the Anglican Communion. In February 2021, the Washington National Cathedral incited controversy when, on February 3rd, the Cathedral promoted on social media its decision to invite Max Lucado, a Texas based megachurch pastor and author of pop-theology and Christian self-help books, as that Sunday’s guest preacher. The decision to invite Lucado was criticized in the viral fashion that can only happen on social media, due to Lucado’s anti-LGBTQ statements. Critics especially noted a 2004 article Lucado wrote for the Christian website Crosswalk, in which Lucado predictably compared homosexuality and same-sex marriage to bestiality and incest. Lucado has since had the article removed from the website and offered an apology for how he rhetorically framed his homophobia. The Bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, and the Very Reverend Randy Hollerith, Dean of the National Cathedral, offered their own apologies for both the initial invitation and Hollerith’s refusal to rescind the invitation once Lucado’s bigotry was brought to their attention. (1)
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Cathedral’s public relations clean-up was Bishop Gene Robinson’s involvement in the incident. Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, celebrated the Eucharist following Lucado’s sermon and delivered some impromptu comments on the controversy. His comments were intended to assure LGBTQ Episcopalians of their present and future inclusion in the Church, regardless of whether the National Cathedral’s preaching invitation to a homophobe might suggest otherwise. Notably, Robinson stated, “we’ve won…we know how it ends”. (2)
Pastoral Directives: The ACNA College of Bishops and Archbishop Ndukuba
Any use of the pronoun “we” is slippery business, and in the Anglican Communion perhaps especially so. Around the same time as the Cathedral incident, Bishops of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) found themselves in a controversy regarding church directives on homosexuality. These directives strongly condemned “gay” identity as such, encouraging LGB Anglicans to use identifiers such as “same sex attracted”. (3) In the American context, this guidance might be regarded as especially conservative, even bigoted, but to be expected from a schismatic sect founded upon purging gay clerics and female bishops from its ranks. Yet it drew the ire of The Most Reverend Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba, the Archbishop and Primate of the Church of Nigeria, which was an early ally of the ACNA before it was formally recognized by the Anglican Communion. In his response to the ACNA bishops, Archbishop Ndukuba accused the ACNA of capitulating to, and even “recruiting” gay people. Using genocidal language, he referred to homosexuality as a “deadly virus” that has “infected” the ACNA, and a “yeast” that must be expunged from the ACNA. In his view, the ACNA bishops failed to thoroughly condemn homosexuality in their pastoral guidance. (4) The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby rebuked Archbishop Ndukuba publicly and privately for his “dehumanizing” language, bringing to light again how Anglicanism’s homophobia is complicated by its entanglement with colonialism. (5) On the one hand, many Anglican bishops in Nigeria and elsewhere have been enthusiastic supporters of the homophobia driving the draconian persecution of queer and trans people in their jurisdictions. On the other hand, many of these same bishops and their flocks bear the intolerable burden of colonial abuse—perhaps rendering critique from their American and British counterparts disingenuous, to say the least.
It is important to briefly note some of the driving forces behind homophobia as it appears in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. In Nigeria, homosexuality is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and other African nations punish homosexuality even more strictly (including capital punishment). These nations are not homophobic in any special way—legalized homophobia and transphobia is common throughout much of the world, including the United States and Great Britain. However, homophobia as it exists legally and ecclesiastically in Nigeria derives from a unique confluence of factors. As the chief justice of the High Court of Botswana, which overturned that nation’s criminalization of homosexuality in 2019 noted, penal codes which criminalize sex acts between people of the same sex are “imports” of their former British colonizers, reflecting British penal codes which were then enforced in Commonwealth nations. (6) Yet, in the post-colonial era, homosexuality and LGBTQ activism in Africa has been characterized as a Western or colonial imposition and therefore un-African. Caroline J. Addington Hall has posited that this sad irony could in part be explained by how the colonial powers, which continue to dominate even after purportedly exiting the scene of their brutal rule, have made a relatively quick about-face regarding the legal status of LGBT people and homosexual sex acts. Thus, European critique of how African nations handle the penal code that was forced upon them is interpreted as another unwelcome attempt at colonial rule. Homophobia has, unfortunately, been grafted into larger nationalistic responses to lingering colonialism. (7) Aside from this, Christian churches throughout Africa compete with Islam, and Muslims generally prohibit same-sex relationships/sex acts. Therefore, strictness regarding homosexuality is seen as necessary if Christian churches are to have any chance at competing with Islam for the souls of the unconverted. (8)
The Problem with Winning
The juxtaposition of the Max Lucado incident, the ACNA bishops’ pastoral letter, Archbishop Ndukuba’s response, and Archbishop Welby’s counter-response make a mess out of Bishop Robinson’s assurance of victory. Between the queers and the homophobes in the Anglican Communion, who, exactly, has won?
Based on context, one would infer that for Bishop Robinson, “winning” for LGBTQ Episcopalians is based on their inclusion in the life of the church. To Robinson’s credit, The Episcopal Church has made significant strides toward sacramental inclusion for LGBTQ people. In 1994, nine years before his consecration, the General Convention amended the church’s canons to forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation in the ordination process. Protection for trans and nonbinary Episcopalians in the ordination process were added in 2012. Marriage rights were opened to all couples in 2015, and a name-change rite is in the works as well. (9)
Yet the winning conferred by inclusion does not remit others’ continued exclusion, as Linn Tonstad argued in her essay “The Limits of Inclusion: Queer Theology and its Others.” (10) Tonstad described how, if the ethical task of queer theology is simply grafting queer and trans people into the already existing structures which hold up our political, social, and church life, the result is that the patterns of thought and church governance which enabled the exclusion and punishment of the queer/trans “other” are repeated and the burden is shifted onto some new set of others. We can infer that if inclusion is our metric for winning as gay men (et cetera) in the Anglican Communion, then our victory does nothing to address and resist the entangled mess of colonialism and homophobia in the Anglican Communion. It simply allows other marginalized groups to face the same sort exclusion that gay men have purportedly triumphed over.
David Paulsen, “Washington bishop, National Cathedral dean apologize for ‘mistake’ of letting Max Lucado preach”, Episopal News Service,February 10, 2021. https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/02/10/washington-bishop-national-cathedral-dean-apologize-for-mistake-of-letting-max-lucado-preach/. Accessed November 16, 2021.
David Paulsen, “Fallout from Washington National Cathedral guest preacher a ‘teachable moment’ for the church” Episcopal News Service, February 9, 2021. https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/02/09/fallout-from-washington-national-cathedral-guest-preacher-a-teachable-moment-for-the-church/. Accessed November 16, 2021.
The College of Bishops (ACNA) “Sexuality and Identity: A Pastoral Statement from the College of Bishops”, anglicanchurch.net, https://anglicanchurch.net/sexuality-and-identity-a-pastoral-statement-from-the-college-of-bishops/. Accessed November 16, 2021.
The Most Reverend Henry C. Ndukuba, “Church of Nigeria’s Position on the Recent Developments in ACNA”, thinkinganglicans.org.uk, https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Church-of-Nigerias-Position-on-the-Recent-Developments-in-ACNA-February-2021-.pdf?x47472. Accessed November 16, 2021.
Anglican Communion News Service, “Archbishop of Canterbury criticises letter by the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Henry Ndukuba”, https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2021/03/archbishop-of-canterbury-criticises-letter-by-the-primate-of-nigeria-archbishop-henry-ndukuba.aspx. Accessed November 16, 2021.
Letsweletse Motshidiemang vs. Attorney General, MAHGB-000591-16 (High Court of Botswana, 2019).
Caroline J. Addington Hall, A Thorn in the Flesh: How Gay Sexuality is Changing the Episcopal Church, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2013), pp. 199-216.
Ibid., 157-158.
“LGBTQ in the Church”, episcopalchurch.org. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/history/. Accessed November 16, 2021.
Linn Tonstad, “The Limits of Inclusion: Queer Theology and its Others”, Theology and Sexuality, Vol. 21 No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-19.
