(July 7th, 2003)
This morning (July 7) I heard interviews on BBC Radio with the Dean of Southwark (where Dr John is a Canon) and with the Bishop of Manchester about the resignation. I also heard a summary of what the British newspapers say this morning about the affair. I have read the various Letters that have been released.
His resignation came after a long meeting at Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop and advisers. It is being commended from there as for the maintaining of the unity of the Anglican Communion of Churches and of the Church of England. In other words, the massive pressure exerted by the evangelicals around the world and in England has worked and the man they targeted has had to withdraw.
We feel deeply for the pain that Canon John has suffered through this long and bitter controversy.
There has been no triumph in terms of the accepting of a traditional doctrine & morality. Not arguments but sheer pressure has been victorious. Thus there remains a sizeable group of Anglicans, mostly in the "West", who believe that within the doctrine of human worth & dignity and of human rights "gay" people should be encouraged in their same-sex partnerships to be faithful. Likewise, there is en even larger group of Anglicans, mostly in the "South", who see all forms of homosexual behaviour as wrong and contrary to the way God has made the human race.
This means that the underlying cause - the call for the rights of gay priests to full acceptance in the Anglican Way in all its 38 Provinces - has merely been put on hold for a short time. It will be back in full swing in the General Convention of the ECUSA about lst August 2003, when there is voting on matters directly related to this issue.
While Canon John should never have been appointed, the person who ought now to resign is the Bishop of Oxford, who knew when he made this appointment what were the deep convictions of many Anglican leaders worldwide and of committed Evangelicals in the C of E. He even knew that the C of E (on the view that it is slowly becoming more liberal) was not itself yet ready for this kind of appointment. Further, as one who is often on Radio & TV the Bishop also would have been aware of the publicity it would cause and bring. It is he who caused all the controversy and brought the Church to shame in the media. There were other men he could have nominated but he chose this man deliberately knowing the consequences (but not necessarily the intensity of them). The Bishop of Oxford should resign not only for his deliberate decision to cause this controversy but also for what he has said and written since in defence of his action and in defence of homosexual practice.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, we hope, has learned a lesson from all this and will be most careful in this sensitive area of homosexuality in the future. He could have blocked this appointment early on in the process before it was a public matter and did not so do. This failure was a serious error of judgment.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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