by Herb Gunn

[August 2008] In the heart of London, seven days before the opening of the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, Gene Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire and the only Episcopal Church diocesan bishop not invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend the once-a-decade conclave, preached in a small church on the south side of the River Thames—St. Mary’s, Putney.

It’s been a long time since the small, once-country church featured into a fortnight of political and theological intrigue and foretold a future of change along the Thames, but the small stone church in County Surrey does have history on its side. Nearly 400 years ago, the church was the site of the Putney Debates. From October 28 to November 11, 1647, no smaller measure of a man than Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton represented the officers of the New Model Army. Together they had led to the overthrow of the Royalist army and to the comfortable imprisonment of Charles I at Hampton Court.

The common men of the sword, however, viewed Cromwell and his officers with suspicion, seeing them too close to Parliament and too accommodating to the king. Cromwell and Ireton authored the Heads of Proposals, which would have retained for the monarchy and House of Lords veto power over the House of Commons.

The foot soldiers, furthermore, were inflamed by the fact that they were neither paid nor protected for their acts of war. Represented by Major Edward Sexby and Colonel Thomas Rainborough, they entered the debates with deep grievances against Parliament, and for two weeks, the adversaries squared off.

The Putney Debates elevated the questions of political authority and the then-radical proposals for universal [male] suffrage and other democratic reforms 100 years before the same ideas leached into the political discourse of colonial America—and I might add, the Episcopal Church. Some in the ranks of the “Levellers,” as those in the cause of the common soldier were called, sought to limit terms in Parliament to one year and to dissolve the unchecked power of kings, bishops and the House of Lords.

“At the heart of the Levellers’ theology was a belief in the freedom and equality of all,” according to a church history of the Putney Debates by Nick Westcott and Giles Fraser. 1

At the time, those inevitable political ideals bathed England in fear, even among those who had orchestrated the overthrow of King Charles. With Cromwell’s grip on the proceedings slipping and advocacy for military mutiny gaining currency, army leaders closed down the Putney Debates in mid-November with a promise to engage in a listening process over the course of time and with Cromwell’s move to set up a committee to further study the conduct of the Army.

“The generals feared that the debates were fatally undermining the discipline and unity of the Army, which was the only guarantor of order in England. They moved to regain the initiative,” according to the history of the Putney Debates. 2

Fed by the passions of renewed warfare, which were punctuated by the escape of King Charles the following week and his beheading 14 months later, fear suppressed the march toward progress, deferring for centuries political change and the tangential theological shifts in the nascent Anglican Communion.

As a site for high drama and history, St. Mary’s, Putney, has few peers in English history and the church renewed its reputation on Sunday, July 13, when the bishop of New Hampshire walked in to worship. He was received with respect from all in attendance, save one protestor who lashed out with the charges of “heretic.”

What’s all this say as commentary on the recently concluded Lambeth Conference and the approach of General Convention next July? Just this.

To the person, every bishop I’ve heard reflect on their experience of Lambeth speaks of the rich oppor-tunities the conference afforded to hear the experiences of brother—and some 18 sister—bishops. It was clearly a time of significant bridge building, deep listening and perhaps the shifting of some hearts. I know the bishops with whom I have spoken felt such shifts in both affection and understanding for their fellow bishops.

Yet a shadow hung over the conference. Noted here, the absence of Gene Robinson as an invited participant and the one person who might have given credibility to the Lambeth-98 pledge to listen to the experience of gay and lesbian Christians. Recall also the absence of over 200 conservative Anglican bishops who appear more deeply aligned with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lambeth.

In order to draw the GAFCON forces back into the Communion’s fold, the archbishop sandwiched the Lambeth Conference between bouts of praise for those who refused to participate. He noted on June 30 that GAFCON’s Jerusalem statement “contains much that is positive and encouraging” and later expressed “a clear sense of affinity with much that was said there” in his post-conference pastoral letter to Anglican bishops on August 26.

Lest one laud Rowan Williams as,the great appeaser of all his critics— after all, GAFCON’s declaration unrecognizes the ABC as the representative of Anglican identity—the archbishop spared little continuing criticism for Gene Robinson. Responding to a media question at Lambeth as to why the New Hampshire bishop wasn’t invited while those who actually consecrated him were, Williams pointedly stated that Robinson’s participation in the fellowship of worldwide Anglican bishops is “questionable.”

Clearly, some major issues still hung in the air during a congenial Lambeth Conference at which several things were designed to dampen or contain the debate over the Anglican Communion and the place of the Episcopal Church within it.

With precise timing, the “Windsor Continuation Group” announced midway through Lambeth that The Windsor Process would forge ahead, developing an Anglican Covenant that has the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams himself, throughout and after the conference, observed fresh enthusiasm for a moratorium on the consecration of additional gay bishops, and then outlined the creation of “a Pastoral Forum as a means of addressing present and future tensions” across the Communion’s member provinces.

One might observe such measures are in the works to disperse the debaters, perhaps because “the debates [are] fatally undermining the discipline and unity of the [Church].”

But I believe the debate will continue—as it must. The Episcopal Church in all its breadth of understanding and practice must keep its voice clear. And as our Episcopal Church polity insists, this isn’t a discussion for the bishops alone.

If we allow the voices of the Episcopal Church to fall silent in this debate, or recoil in fear, the changes we seek—and have sought since the beginning of the Episcopal Church 142 years after the Putney Debates encouraged the direction of our political thought and theology—may be silenced for another 100 years.

“I think God wants us to be bold,” said Gene Robinson, in a once-country church in England. “I think God wants us to take risks. I think God wants us to not be afraid.”

1 Nick Westcott and Giles Fraser, The Putney Debates (St. Mary’s Church, Putney SW15 1SN, October 2007.) Page 4
2 Ibid. Page 7