Frayed nerves at Synod

Christians in the United States once tried to embrace environmentalism by asking their fellow Americans "What would Jesus drive?"

Now here at home as Anglican clergy gathered in York for the General Synod of the Church of England, Christians are again asking themselves what would Jesus do about homosexual priests and Bishops.

Right at the outset of the meeting, Church officials ruled out any debate, saying it would generate "more heat than light".

The wounds caused by the appointment of a gay man, Canon Jeffrey John, as Bishop of Reading, were still open.

Ben Geoghegan asked Anglicans what they thought of the way the Archbishop of Canterbury handled this controversy.

GEOGHEGAN:
The first people through the doors for this General Synod were the evangelicals, perhaps a sign of their growing self-confidence. Many of them had objected the loudest to Jeffrey John's appointment and now they feel relieved. How do you feel about the way the Jeffrey John issue has been resolved?

DR DAVID BLACKMORE:
I feel great relief, and surprise I might add as well, that Jeffrey John had the graciousness to do this. He has come out of it very well.

DR ELAINE STARKEY:
His withdrawal was gracious and compassionate. I am pleased it's come to this point. I am sorry it had to come to this point. I wish we could have done it some other way earlier on.

REV DR RICHARD TURNBULL:
The mind of the Anglican Communion, the world-wide Church is clear on this matter and some people just don't like the answer. The answer is clear, that homosexual practice is not compatible with the teaching of scripture.

GEOGHEGAN:
It's no surprise that the evangelicals are happy with the way things have turned out, but many Anglicans arriving here in York this weekend, still have questions about the Archbishop of Canterbury's role in Jeffrey John's downfall. Originally he said it was an appointment he didn't want to promote or obstruct, but his meeting with Dr John last weekend was clearly decisive. A lot of liberals say that, by intervening, the Archbishop of Canterbury has effectively been allowed himself to be manipulated by the Church's traditionalists.

UNNAMED WOMAN:
The appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading that has led, subsequent to his resignation, I guess a lot of people are very unhappy about the Church of England...

GEOGHEGAN:
To many Anglicans, Jeffrey John had become a symbol of their fight for greater acceptance. His decision to withdraw as Bishop of Reading has been nothing short of devastating. This week, they have been working out how they can reassert themselves in an organisation where many of them feel they have to remain invisible.

REV PAUL COLLIER:
It's been a disastrous turn of events that people opposed to Jeffrey John's nomination as Bishop of Reading, who have used tactics which are not Christian, such as using money as a weapon to try and win your point of view, such as threatening schism, it's a disaster that those tactics seem to have won the day.

GEOGHEGAN:
So do you think he should have stood up to the evangelicals more effectively?

COLLIER:
It's impossible, without standing in his shoes, to say the way that he has handled it, but I do think that it's extremely disappointing that this is the outcome.

UNNAMED CLERGYMAN:
Let us greet our newly enthroned Archbishop with great gladness. When Dr Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this year, there was huge excitement among the Church's liberals who saw him as a natural ally. As a bishop, he had ordained a gay Priest. He has also expressed misgivings about the policy which allows lay members to be practising homosexuals but says the clergy have to stay celibate. He showed he wasn't prepared to take a fixed view based on his reading of the Bible.

DR ROWAN WILLIAMS:
If the Bible is clear that a heterosexual indulging in homosexual activity for the sake of variety and gratification is not following the will of God, does that automatically say that that's the only kind of homosexual activity that there could ever be? What about those people who, with prayer and thought and seriousness and adulthood, say, "I have never known anything different?" What do we say to them?

GEOGHEGAN:
Greyfriars Church in the Oxford diocese led the opposition to Jeffrey John's appointment. This is a place where they believe questions of sexuality are almost as clear-cut as the Ten Commandments carved into the walls. Here they think the episode has demonstrated that, just because the Archbishop holds certain views, it doesn't mean he is going to allow them to influence the direction of the Church.

PHILIP GIDDINGS:
It may well be that there were people in the Church encouraged by Dr Williams' appointment because they thought that was his agenda and that would happen, and that quite a number of those, in the light of what's happened, have now discovered that they have misread the situation. That has made some of them quite angry. A bishop or archbishop with a personal agenda I think needs quickly to learn that's not what the role under God is. It's about pastoral care, and leadership, yes, but the art of leadership is to carry people with you and to lead as a servant in response to God. I am perfectly clear that that's how Archbishop Rowan sees it.

GEOGHEGAN:
In the end, many in the Church feel Dr Williams was left with no room for manoeuvre. With parishes talking about withdrawing funds from the Oxford diocese and churches abroad threatening to separate from the Anglican communion, the stakes were too high. Rowan Williams had to put church unity above everything else.

RUPERT SHORTT:
Any disunity in the body is a very bad thing. When you have provinces of the Anglican communion in Africa and elsewhere threatening to break away, I think that is something that gives him pause, that causes him very grave concern. It appears that a judgement has been reached in the higher councils of the Church that unity matters more at this stage than taking a potentially divisive stand.

COLLIER:
Unity, yes, but diversity within unity. Unity is not true unity if it's unity which is dictated, the terms of which are dictated by one section of the Church. So we do not at all wish to see people who have expressed their opposition to Jeffrey John being pushed out of the Church.

GEOGHEGAN:
The Church has stayed together this week, but some bishops who supported Jeffrey John have openly expressed their unhappiness about what has happened. The Bishop of Worcester issued a statement to Newsnight saying:

"To meet, as I have just done, with those in my diocese most deeply devalued and undermined by the shameful events of recent days is to meet with generosity, affection and, despite everything, even hope. But it is not¿ to meet with passive acceptance of what has been done to then and to us all."

RT REV JOHN OLIVER:
I think he should emphasise the fact that they are actually a minority of Christian people, and they are certainly a very small minority in the country at large. I think he should ask them to look again at the reason why they take such a hard line about this issue. They will say that it's to do with the authority of scripture, but I think that a truly scholarly approach to all the references in the Bible to this matter, and to the fact that the most important parts of the Bible don't refer to it at all, ought to enable us to come to a mind that it is not a matter of first importance, and certainly not a matter which ought to be allowed to divide the Church.

GEOGHEGAN:
Jeffrey John won't be coming to the synod this year, and so in that sense he is now well and truly off the scene. But every time his name is mentioned, Anglicans will be reminded that the potential for further damage to their church is still very real.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.