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The Rev. Christopher Brdlik
March 25, 2007 - Fifth Sunday in Lent

Let me talk this morning about several articles in the newspapers this past week. Whenever the Episcopal Church is the object of journalism, when the news is about the Episcopal Church rather than how the Episcopal Church is responding in ministry to the news (of some disaster or crisis), people get concerned and wonder what’s happening. They’re asked by their friends what’s going on in their Church. They ask themselves what to tell their families. Some P.R. person once said that no publicity is ever bad. But I’m not sure our people really believe that. When they read an article in the paper about their Church, at least they wonder and sometimes they get concerned. 

Yet the article this week I want to begin with is one about the hidden practice of polygamy among immigrant families from Africa. (N.Y. Times, March 23, 2007) Stay with me on this one, for it becomes relevant. A tragic house-fire in the Bronx killed ten persons recently, most of them children. In investigating this terrible event authorities discovered they were members of an extended family of a man from Mali (in western Africa) with multiple wives. Since then journalists have probed and revealed that many immigrants from North and West Africa, where polygamy is a cultural practice, did not leave it at home. Now most of us associate polygamy with Islam. And we may be aware that the Koran allows a man up to four wives. Yet as a cultural phenomenon polygamy predates and transcends the founding of the Muslim religion. That it is allowed in the Koran at all, according to most Islamic scholars, is only because it was common in pre-Islamic cultures. And the Koranic practice is to restrict it by placing high standards on how a husband can treat his wives and family equally and fairly — standards difficult to meet, virtually outlawing the practice in most parts of the Islamic world today. 

This is relevant to us because polygamy also has lasted among African people who have become Christians. According to our bishop, Carol Gallagher, some of the same African bishops who object to American standards about homosexuality or the equality of women — some of these same bishops have multiple wives, though that’s not reported in articles in the newspapers. Even in their home countries this is not necessarily discussed openly. But it is something of a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged while remaining a secret. 

In fact African societies seem to treat polygamy the way Westerners used to treat homosexuality: don’t ask, don’t tell; its existence was acknowledged only as a secret truth. What sparked the controversy in the Anglican Communion — and all those articles in the newspapers — was that gays and lesbians in Western societies began to declare themselves openly and honestly. 

Postmodernism in the West empowers minority groups or marginalized groups to make claims for personal rights on a basis of equality. When issues of sexuality, including the role of women, are brought into the open in postmodern discussion, developing cultures aren’t ready to understand. In fact, social developments in the West can seem threatening or destructive to fragile status quo structures in the Global South: it looks like one more example of Western cultural imperialism. 

One of the things happening right now in the Anglican Communion is this cultural misunderstanding, cultural imperialism on both sides, it would seem. We haven’t given sufficient time or energy toward understanding different social contexts in the practice of worldwide Christianity. Unless more time and energy are allowed for dialogue, we will not achieve understanding. In fact, without time for dialogue we will separate. What I want to emphasize, however, is that the issue is not just homosexuality any longer. The cultural pressures in the Anglican Communion in fact have more to do with emerging, evolving ideas about all of human identity, notably the identity of gender, the role of women, the idea of equality. The West has insisted on discussing these matters openly. The Global South is not prepared to do so. 

The other issue facing the Anglican Communion today is polity — how a Church governs itself and makes decisions. Remember your American history. It’s the history of our Church, too. We declared our independence from the Church of England when the colonies declared their own independence from the King and government of England. Our Church’s constitution was written by many of the same men who worked on the U.S. Constitution. Our structures parallel the Federal government in multiple ways: a bicameral legislature, shared power, balanced decision-making, checks and balances. No one in the early American Episcopal Church wanted to duplicate the role of monarchical bishops they knew from England. Many Americans had emigrated to escape the experience of powerful bishops allied with aristocratic oppression. While we devised our polity to include bishops in apostolic succession, their role in the American Episcopal Church was different by intention from what was common in England. American bishops are elected by their clergy and representative lay leaders. Laity, clergy and bishops make decisions together, meeting in convention. Power is limited, because power is shared. We are not imperial, monarchist or royal, but democratic and independent. Specifically, there is no curia, no outside authority that can impose decisions on the American Episcopal Church, as the curia in the Vatican does for Roman Catholics. To date, the Archbishop of Canterbury has only been the symbol of our history and our shared traditions in worship and theology. He can be the convener of the Anglican Communion, gathering worldwide Anglican Christians together in all their variety, or perhaps even the mediator of discussion and dialogue within the Anglican Communion. (We are asking him to do that now.) But he is not an Anglican pope, and neither he nor anyone else is empowered to impose directives on the Episcopal Church. That has never been our understanding of the Anglican Communion. The American Episcopal Church has valued highly being a part of a worldwide fellowship of autonomous Anglican Christians, linked by history and bonds of affection, united in mutual support of ministry and mission, including payment of a generous share of the expenses. But it is proud to be democratic, and an independent member of the Anglican Communion. 

Let me wrap this up for the moment. When Jesus declared to a crowd in Bethany that “the poor we will always have with us,” he did not mean we should lessen our concern for the poor or flag in our zeal to minister to those in need. (Today’s gospel reading, John 12:1-8, my paraphrase.) He simply meant there will always be things for Christians to do in ministry for their neighbors. Opportunities for mission are not going away. So, too, will Christian unity always present us with opportunities to dialogue and discuss with fellow Christians. Doctrinal disputes aren’t going away — there will always be reason for us to reason with each other. The process of dialogue on difficult subjects cannot be short-cutted or short-changed by making pronouncements, or posturing, or pushing. I’d give the Anglican Communion eight or ten years to figure its way out of the present conflict. No one should push too fast or too hard. Everyone would benefit if we were to refocus on mission and ministry. That’s what made us a Communion in the first place, shared ministry.  

At a similar time of discouragement and crisis in the history of the people of Israel, Isaiah (43:16-21) wrote of God’s promises: “Do not remember the former things or the things of old. I am about to do a new thing,” said God. “Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”  

To be honest, God, well, no, we don’t perceive it yet. But we do believe you are leading us, toward a new thing, an evolving thing, an emerging consensus. We believe you are leading us, God, if only we give you the chance. Make for us a way in the wilderness, and we will declare your praise. 

© copyright 2007, Christopher Brdlik

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