It always gets interesting to hear the cultural differences in these radio interviews.

I guess that Bishop Gladwin sounds like - to me - he is in a bit of a coming out process himself.

That is to say, he sounds like he is just starting to take a more public stand, buffeted by media whirlwinds perhaps, about being able to separate out noticing Anglican differences from being able to effectively cooperate in some service or other sort of shared project. The clear witness that probably upsets Anglican Uniformity junkies sounds like the witness that the call to uniformity or agreement in our Anglican life does not by absolute definition preceed and overrule the call to relate, work together, or possibly do service in a hurting world.

This sort of thing used to be nothing but ho-hum boring Anglican, historically; but of course now it is the height of daring and controversy.

Subsidiary controversy themes might also yet prove eventually to make important witnesses. I thank Bishop Gladwin for actually saying out loud that the common Christian prejudices against LGBTQ folks simply will no longer pass scrutiny as gospel values and gospel speech. British Reform, Anglican Mainstream, and others who probably view themselves as cutting edge incarnations of the only right Anglican way forward - pun intended? - hardly ever feel it necessary to talk about antigay prejudices. It is as if those instances of bearing false witness against LGBTQ (or progressive, or unbelieving, or world religion believing) neighbors simply did not exist, let alone speak up so often with such force, inside the communities conformed to that way of reading scripture. This flies in the face of considerable research which demonstrates that I can largely predict a person's homophobia scale scores (using, say, Gregory Herek's ATLG Scale or any suitably validated instrument) - from knowing just how conservative and religious that person is. There remains variation even after that nexus of correlation, but not nearly so much as realigning Anglican groups like to suppose as they pat themselves on the back for daring to traditionally condemn, the evidence be damned.

So. It does take daring - who knows how much? - to hint that some forms of conservative or traditional piety are still contributing to prejudice problems among us. Historically, of course, this has long been the case in our daily lives. How little we recall that the evangelical believers who fought slavery and scriptural theories of racial inferiority were, themselves, innovators speaking to an even more traditional/orthodox body of even more traditional Anglican believers. Even the rather evangelical notion that one should have a personal relationship with Jesus as Risen Lord, not exclusively mediated by sacraments or churchiness, was once upon a time, controversial and innovative among at least some Anglican believers.

The other background witness which I think could conceivably become quite important is Bishop Gladwin's valorization of how able the average lay believer really is, even in Kenya where the African bishop/archbishop thing is supposed to trump all else. Thus average lay believers are not necessarily caught up in all the realignment and purity driven fuss about Anglican differences, including those related to sexuality and human nature. Bravo then, for reminding me that I can often rely on the sophisticated discernments of lay people even when perhaps their bishops or archbishops have lost their grip on historic Anglican leeway in these matters. Perhaps Africa is not really the rigid monolith the realignment campaign defines it to be, and perhaps that will contribute to our healthy recovery of Anglican leeway. Who knows? The Holy Spirit has often, often, often worked through ordinary seeming people, who are only later belatedly recognized as saints, innovators who nevertheless re-related us to a nearly lost sense of the gospel, prophets, or other exemplary witnesses. Fasten your seat belt, Bishop Gladwin, you are no doubt in for a bit of a bumpy ride. But, be of good cheer. Jesus got bumped, way before us.

Did anyone else notice that when the bishop was asked if his programme in Kenya was indeed able to go ahead he said "yes" initially, but then said that the 20 curates were able to complete their programme - which does not sound quite the same?

Or maybe I am splitting hairs.