New York Times Op-ed
August 13, 1998

Anglicans Get Literal By JOHN SHELBY SPONG NEWARK -- The waning of Christianity was apparent to me at the recent gathering of Anglican bishops.

At this once-a-decade meeting, known as the Lambeth Conference, the world's Anglican bishops declared that homosexual activity was "incompatible with Scripture" and advised against the ordination of homosexuals. Imposed abstinence was to be their price of admission. Anything else, the bishops said, was condemned in Scripture and violated the sacred tradition of 2,000 years of Christian history.

Behind the debate, however, was another reality. The Anglican Church, once a moderating and open community for Christians, has now, in the last decade of this century, turned sharply in a narrowly conservative direction.

That has not been accomplished in the developed world, as evangelicals claim, by increasing the number of adherents to their point of view. It does reflect, however, the rapid decline in the number of Christians who are willing to embrace new ideas.

Many former churchgoers have simply given up on Christianity and have joined the church alumni association. They don't believe that the literal readings of the Scripture can solve the complex social and ethical issues of our day. They cannot understand the traditional claims made for the God of the Bible, who could do so many miraculous things, but who today seems impotent by comparison.

In the traditional Christian story, they see a God who needed the blood offering of his son to save the fallen creation.

Such a God has little appeal to these people's ears. They know that Christianity once decried the discoveries of Galileo and Darwin, supported such institutions as slavery and segregation and was an agent in the oppression of women, the mentally ill and even left-handed people. These strange attitudes were all based on literal readings of the Bible.

Now the Anglican Church, historically dedicated to determining truth through reason as well as through Scripture and tradition, has made an equally egregious error, this time against homosexuals. And those of us who seek to force the increasingly conservative church to address these issues from a modern perspective are dismissed as secular humanists, apostates or even as atheists.

Where are the prophets or reformers who are willing to challenge Christianity to embrace a new Reformation? If the Anglican Church becomes dedicated to preserving prejudices, our followers may well vote with their feet. The time is getting critically near when there will no longer be a following significant enough to turn this tide.

How tragic it is to watch this great force in Western civilization sink into a negative and fearful position. Yet this is what I saw and heard at the Lambeth Conference. It was the sunset of the Anglican Communion.

John Shelby Spong is the Episcopal Bishop of Newark and the author of "Why Christianity Must Change or Die."