My only comment about the World Service interview was that when it came to the Millennium Development Goals it was all about people, and poverty, and dignity, plus looking into slavery was about removing dignity, but when it came to the homosexuality issue it was about Churches moving too quickly and some African Churches wanting a clear sexual ethic in the context of chaotic sexual behaviour and disease.

The imbalance of focus was obvious, and when it was not about the Church the missing comment was that the clear sexual ethic had little to nothing to do with the chaos of the sexual behaviour that leads to so much disease in Africa. Indeed, the argument is quite the opposite: a situation where African states had "homosexual marriage" might underline responsible sexual behaviour that could be commended to the spreading-it-about of so many of the heterosexuals.

I am struck by contrasts also.

In this interview, for domestic British consumption via the BBC, the Archbishop of Canterbury wears his moderate, eirenic face. We must not foreclose debate, we must listen to one another, due process must be observed, oh dear, bigotry does make me shudder too.

To my church, the Episcopal Church, he wears a quite difference face. He is our superior, speaking to inferiors who have dared to rebel against those who have the right of command.

The Archbishop speaks to us of "unconditional submission" to the "demands" of the Primates and to Lambeth 1.10 as the "clear teaching of the Church." No discussion of sexuality is to be permitted in the Episcopal Church!

Meanwhile, he acts in concert with other Primates to bring in foreign powers to supervise, and perhaps to dismantle our Church.

We are rebels who must conform and submit without reservation to him, though we can expect nothing but condign punishment.

And we Americans are expected to pay for all of this?

Why do I get the feeling that all of this has happened before -- perhaps in the 1770s?

Charlotte
The BBC World Service is specifically NOT designed for domestic consumption. Indeed it is not financed by the same method as the BBC domestic services (an annual license fee on households with a TV receiver on the premises).

The Dan Damon interview was conducted for the World Service. The Sunday programme simply borrowed material from it.

Charlotte, it's long since been time to throw the tea in the harbor again.

Simon, thank you for correcting me on this important point.

I hope the implication is that we may consider the Archbishop's peace-making words as addressed also to the Episcopal Church.

More timidity from the Archbishop here.

He draws back from his earlier (November 2005) astonishing requirement for "an overwhelming consensus" before change in Anglican attitudes to homosexual practice could be permitted.

Now he says, "without wanting to say ‘Oh we can’t move a step without absolutely universal consensus’" - in other words, he recognises that lack of universal consensus cannot entirely stop progress. But he says it in a very mealy mouthed way.

And he says, "we can be in a position where we might feel we’re being held hostage by somebody’s ill-advised or embarrassing decision" - but he doesn't make it clear whether he talking about embarrassing decisions of the likes of the Global South, or of the likes of TEC.

He does not refer at all to the persistent refusal of a hard core of Primates to take communion with their fellow Primates. I would have thought it was at least worth a mention. How badly this contrasts with the absolute primacy given to communion by the Pope's recent document (Feb 2007) Sacramentum Caritatis! But no, he’s stuck on Gene Robinson and gay blessings.

He recognises the damage being done to the church: "it is frustrating that this is an issue which could dominate some international agendas at the level of church leadership" and "in public perception the church I think is rather damaged by this picture of a body that’s interested in it’s internal housekeeping, and you might say other people’s internal housekeeping in another sense. And that does us no favours."

But he offers no way out. He says there is "no short cut" and he does not endorse the request which he admits to hearing "please can we talk about something else".

He hints, no more than that, at criticism of some his fellow Primates and others on the conservative side: "at times people will say things that I and others will find extremely hard to hear because they sound like blanket bigotry."

But when the questioner references Akinola, by quoting "the satanic attack stuff", the Archbishop hesitates and simply shies away from any specific critcism, wandering off into a justification of what he has previously characterised as "bigotry".

Whether TEC and Canada and others leave, or Nigeria and others leave, or both, this sort of performance will not prevent the break up of the Anglican Communion.

It is not leadership.

"Charlotte, it's long since been time to throw the tea in the harbor again.--JPM

RIGHT ON!