Goodbye: go well

The recent controversy over the departure of Hamilton priest Michael Hewat and most of his congregation from the folds of the Diocese of Waikato-Taranaki has, as is usual in the media, glossed over complex issues.  Sooner or later all dioceses face these issues, and as fellow-travellers we possibly need  more nuanced view than the popular press provide.

For one thing, this is not goodies v baddies. Michael Hewat, who I suspect it is fair to say operates from a theological and pastoral perspective very different to my own, is clearly a person of strong principle. His particular line in the sand is a matter of biblical interpretation with which I disagree, but I admire his integrity.

Helen Ann Hartley is equally a person of principle.  Her particular line is one of canonical and legal interpretation, that is to say application of church law, and she too is absolutely right to draw that line. To belong to a denomination is one thing (many Roman Catholics do not toe the official line on such matters as birth control) but, in purely secular terms, to be employed by it is another: the contested Motion 30 of General Synod that has become the bridge too far for Hewat is now enshrined in New Zealand Anglican Church polity.

Of course I disagree with Hewat, which makes it easier for me to pontificate about these matters. Although I am fairly conservative in doctrinal matters, I have long been persuaded that a) marriage has ever been an evolving contract (monogamous “marriage for love” is a very recent development, and was greeted with considerable scepticism and opposition when it emerged as a practice in the Romantic era. For what it’s worth, in the Medieval courtly world adultery was considered all but a duty, not that I am recommending it!).

If that were the whole of the argument I might never have been persuaded. In the end though I was persuaded (many years ago, incidentally) when I saw the vast chasm between theory and reality, as gay men and women were forced to live lives of self-denial (fine, if its voluntary), deceit (double lives are never fine) and emotional torment. Perhaps it’s little more than a “lesser of two evils” argument, but I could not believe that God, on the basis of the highly poetic sentence that forms Gen 2:24, would condemn perhaps 10% of humans to incomplete and unfulfilled and lonely lives.

Which is not to ignore the opportunistic and un-edifying approach taken by those who want to marry their dogs, cows, sisters, or sanction paedophilia: there will always be idiot fringes adding grist to the mill of the thin end of the wedge argument. I’m not sure I have much truck for those who want to marry while dangling from a helicopter, either. The NSW judge who recently declared that incest should be legalised was not showing particularly advanced intellect.

In the end I want to mihi Hewat and Hartley alike. Hewat’s churchmanship is fairly reprehensible and un-Anglican to me, so I might at one level be glad to wish him gone. But I don’t dance on graves: I prefer to wish him and his flock well. At the same time I am deeply grateful that Bishop Helen Ann has recognized that any body must have boundaries, the church included, and there are times those boundaries of authority and discipline must be drawn.