Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
by the Very Rev. Cn. Andrew Rowell
What does it mean to speak truth with clarity? How does our bishops’ responsibility to set forth godly doctrine help us as we seek to show loving compassion to those experiencing the world’s brokenness? I’ve been pondering these questions from a pastor’s perspective while attending the First Assembly of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans in Cairo, Egypt this week.
By way of background, we are here in Cairo to “re-set” the Anglican Communion by creating covenantal structures to which one must commit in order to be part of this fresh, faithful expression of Anglicanism. Put another way, while checks and balances exist within the structures of Anglicanism (in a congregation through the relationship between a rector and the vestry; in a diocese between a bishop and synod; and in a province between an archbishop/college of bishops and provincial synod), we’ve never before had the power to discipline an entire province that becomes heretical. When the provinces of TEC in the USA and the Church of England began to openly celebrate sexual sin in direct contradiction to the Word of God, the worldwide Anglican Communion had no clear means to call these provinces back to orthodoxy. I’m honored to have signed on, through my own diocese, to the new covenantal structures of the GSFA which bind faithful Anglicans together by means of a common set of theological principles. This is, indeed, a “reformation moment” in the history of the Anglican Communion.
But even here in Cairo, in the midst of much rejoicing over these new covenantal structures, we continue to hear odd echoes of revisionism. While the leadership of Canterbury and the financial clout of TEC are not “in the room where all of this is happening,” their decades long efforts to unmoor the Communion’s life from orthodoxy is hard to shake. Just this morning, the Archbishop of Singapore, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Titus Chung, took his slot in the week’s schedule to offer a reflection that implied our call is to “deep listening” rather than to clear Gospel proclamation of the truth delivered once for all to the saints. He spoke specifically on Acts 15 when the Jerusalem Council determined that Gentiles could join the community of believers if they, in the words of Archbishop Titus, “avoided certain foods.” His glaring omission of the last clause of Acts 15:29, “and abstain from sexual immorality” did not go unnoticed. Some leaders wondered how on earth the progressive agenda had reared its head, even here, in a body trying to shrug off Canterbury’s unfaithful control of the Communion.
The Rev. Dr. Sam Ferguson, rector of The Falls Church Anglican, followed up Archbishop Chung’s teaching by giving a plenary on human sexuality and biblical anthropology. Fr. Sam presented an orthodox Christian anthropology and explained how the modern West is telling our children (and the children of the whole world through the power of the internet and the global use of smartphones) three distressing lies: that each of us must create our own identities; that gender is not given but something one must determine based on one’s feelings; and that, because there is nothing beyond this life, we must pursue our best life now including seizing all the sexual experience we can. This perspective has been growing ever since Freud taught that our sexual selves are our most important selves.
To rebut these lies, God’s Word teaches us that God created us. Our identities are given to us, not created by us. Our genders are not based on feelings, as if mind and body can be separated, but rather granted to us by God such that whether one is XX or XY is baked into every one of our cells. And our hope is fixed on eternal life with our Creator such that all of our dysphorias will one day be replaced with the euphoria of seeing our God face to face.
So, how can clarity help us show compassion? We need clarity from our bishops who are the defenders of orthodox doctrine. We need them to do their duty and set forth a clear understanding of the proper boundaries in which to celebrate our sexuality and gender so that priests, deacons, and laypersons will be free to give compassionate counsel to those struggling with gender dysphoria and both homosexual and heterosexual temptations. We can help others and ourselves see that we are created by God and need not create ourselves. Our identity is in Christ not something we search our feelings to find. God’s great purpose for human sexuality is good, very good, and a precious foretaste of the hope that is ours. This is our eternal future where those who are in Christ will feast at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
The Very Rev. Andrew Rowell is the Rector of Christchurch Montgomery and Dean of the Western Deanery of the Gulf Atlantic Diocese. Andrew received his undergraduate degree from Duke University (1995), his law degree from the University of Virginia (1999), and his Masters of Divinity from the Duke University Divinity School (2008). Fr. Andrew is married to Miriam “Mimi” Suber Rowell, who is a Critical Care Registered Nurse. Andrew and Mimi have two sons, Eben and Zeke. Andrew is a Trustee of the American Anglican Council.
