Church in South Africa offers a blueprint for tackling sexuality debate

The Archbishop of Cape Town has called on the Anglican Communion to take a lesson from the Apartheid era in tackling the divisive issue of human sexuality.

Speaking at the USPG Annual Conference yesterday, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba urged Anglicans to adopt the Indaba group reflection process - used effectively during the Apartheid era - to try to bring together those who disagree regarding issues of gender and sexuality in the church.

He said: 'Indaba calls community members together to share news of developments or discuss concerns. Indaba necessarily entails a degree of acknowledged inter-dependence, even vulnerability, towards one another. Indaba says leaders must work for the well being of the entire community, especially those in greatest need. And debate is conducted through everyone being allowed to have their say, contributing their own perspective, so that the fullest picture can be drawn, and from it an outcome that is as consensual, and as "win-win" as possible, can emerge. Indaba is not an interminable talking shop. Indaba can and does impose sanctions, including the ultimate sanction of expulsion on those who transgress the life of the community - but only after every other possible option is fully explored.'

He concluded: 'This is the way to help us re-find one another within the body of Christ.'

In making his case, the archbishop drew upon the experience of South Africa, which he described as a 'global microcosm' and a 'microcosm of the Anglican Communion', with huge diversities in race, language and culture, including high church, low church, Anglo-Catholics, Afro-Catholics and evangelicals, with both the poverty associated with the Global South and the wealth and westernisation of the Global North.

'Nonetheless,' he said, 'we still hold together - and are managing to do so over human sexuality. It is well known that within our province one can find pretty much the whole range of views on human sexuality that are found within the Anglican family... We feel sharp pains and great distress when we are called to consider these issues. Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not. The sharing of our pain has in fact left us feeling more closely bound to one another.'

Considering the range of views within the global Anglican Communion, the archbishop said: 'Exclusion, severing ties and breaking contact can never be the best way forward. Surely we can never give up on each other - for God never gives up on any of us.'

The archbishop referred directly to the decision of The Episcopal Church in the US to consecrate a homosexual bishop despite the disapproval of many within the Anglican Communion. Speaking directly to US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (who was also speaking at the USPG conference), Archbishop Thabo said: 'There are times when it seems that your province, or some within it, despite voicing concern for the rest of us, can nonetheless act in ways that communicate a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us... Much as we understand that you are in all sincerity attempting to discern the best way forward within your own context, we ask you to be sensitive to the rest of us.'

Archbishop Thabo said the Indaba process could provide a way forward that would allow all voices to be heard and answers to be found.

He said: 'We must respond in ways that not only provide answers but, more importantly, help individuals and communities to grow in knowledge and love of God; in maturity of faith; and in sharing this faith, this godly love, with others. These answers may appear different on the surface, but on a deeper level they will be coherent with each other and with the gospel of Jesus Christ.'

Posted on 11.06.2010