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| Archbishop of Wales Andy John Source: BBC |
The impotency of the Church in Wales became a little clearer on Sunday in an interview with the new archbishop of Wales, Andy John.
Questioned on the BBC radio programme All Things Considered the divorced father of four admitted his failure and 'messing up' as he put it.
So concerned was he with his failure that he had considered applying for a HGV licence or taking up teaching but some 'good friends' persuaded him to use his failure as a lesson for others. It would make him a 'better priest'.
This convinced him that there had to be 'a way back', something he has clearly applied to his own ministry and that of the bishop of St Davids in his comments on Joanna Penberthy's behaviour.
Archbishop John went on to say "that compassion has no boundaries, that compassion is a good thing. It is restoring. It is not that the Church shouldn't have proper boundaries. It should have standards and we should hold each other accountable. However, there has got to be a way back. Then if you never give people a way back into faith then you drive people into a cul-de-sac and you drive people out of the Church and that's true for people whether they have been divorced, re-married or people who are gay. Whether it is people who are trans or what-have-you.
"If you say there is no place for you in the Church I think you've done something truly dreadful and we must remember that Jesus called each and every part of society to come and to follow Him."
Asked about his stance on 'the gay issue' the archbishop said it was a bit of a shock to him to encounter gay Christians who displayed all the signs of goodness and godliness and kindness and righteousness that he thought was impossible. It made no sense. It created a kind of crisis in his theology. Here were all the fruits of the Spirit in these lives and yet the scriptures spoke against this.
That caused him to go back and ask serious questions about the extent to which moral theology can be undertaken purely on the basis of what was revealed and understood to be appropriate. An appropriate ordering of life in the first century after our Lord's death and whether or not we need to introduce other questions as well to have us form a way of ordering our lives, managing our affairs in a way that is appropriate and good but doesn't lock us into a kind of first century lifestyle or expectations which he didn't believe could be sustained in the 21st Century.
Challenged on what he had said Abp John acknowledged that he had had 'robust' conversations particularly with evangelicals who do not see things as he had described them but the Church had changed its position on a number of things whether it is divorce or the role of women. The arguments about that were very, very fierce indeed and we came to realise, not just because of scripture but we saw women exercising good and godly leadership and we realised that this was the clincher. This was what made sense when they saw it in action and when the Church in relation to the same sex issues sees that there are good people who are engaged and mutually belong to each other and the sky doesn't fall down we will move on and we will no longer have an issue to wrestle with.
Question on what he could do about two dioceses where senior staff have been at odds with one another Andy John admitted it had been "Challenging". There were two things that we have to bear in mind when dealing with such difficulties. First, in the Church in Wales like many Churches, we had not been very good or accustomed to dealing with things like job descriptions, competencies, the way in which grievances, complaints and so forth are managed and tended to rely on the relational aspect of life so we just expect to get along with people and it is a rude shock when all of a sudden you don't and people complain and they have grievances and they are really quite serious. We haven't been good at providing for ourselves, a way of managing our conflicts. He thought we were now suffering the consequences of that but the mistake was to think that you could run from this.
The archbishop said he was committed to changing the culture, running towards the challenges or conflicts, not away from them. His task was to make sure that culture shift takes place within the Church, making sure we have the proper protocols, the Rules and Regs that control our life, but that the culture of the Church is one in which we are both a safe, healthy, mindful organisation where ultimately, because we do believe totally in reconciliation. If we can't get this right, if we can't learn what it means to forgive and move on it undermines our witness. He was confident that the Church in Wales does believe in those things and it just needs to bring more energy and resolve to making sure that we don't 'duck the issues' but get them right.
So, getting things right means that discipline is for underlings in 'monarchical' bishoprics while errant bishops are to be shown compassion and forgiveness.
That the archbishop should point to women in the Church exercising good and godly leadership given the mess in St Davids and in Llandaff serves only to emphasise the impotence of the Church in Wales and its discredited leadership.
The archbishop says that compassion should be shown to those who break the rules, providing them with a 'way back' but, as the bench has hypocritically demonstrated over many years, there is no way back for Anglicans who keep the faith by sharing the beliefs of the majority of Christians in the wider Church. It is the cul-de-sac for them.
It seems to me as far as the archbishop is concerned, Nothing really matters... as zoroastrian Freddie Mercury used to sing.
